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Whistler  and  Others 


Note 

7 he  First,  Third,  Tenth  and  Fifteenth  Chapters  in 
the  present  Volume  have  seen  the  light  already  in 
" The  Nineteenth  Century”  ; the  Ninth  is  re-arranged 
from  “ The  Anglo-Saxon  Review”  ; and  the  Sixteenth 
reprinted  from  “ The  Magazine  of  Fine  Arts.” 
Thanks  are  then  tendered  to  Sir  James  Knowles, 
Mrs.  George  Cornwallis  West , and  Sir  George 
Newnes.  Certain  of  the  remarks  in  other  portions  of 
this  book  were  first  made  in  the  “ Standard.” 


CONTENTS 


Page 

A CANDID  WORD  ix 

I.  THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  . . 1 

II.  VENETIAN  PAINTING  30 

III.  FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN  ...  35 

IV.  RICHARD  WILSON  ....  70 

V.  GOYA 72 

VI.  THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  76 

VII.  ROMNEY  AND  LAWRENCE  . . 90 

VIII.  RAEBURN  AND  ZOFFANY  ...  92 

IX.  RUSKIN 95 

X.  CONSTABLE’S  “ENGLISH  LANDSCAPE 99  105 

XI.  ETTY  ......  125 

XII.  LARGE  WATER-COLOURS  . . .127 

XIII.  HINE 129 

XIV.  AN  ENDLESS  ROLL-CALL  . . .135 

XV.  THE  FIELD  OF  THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  137 

XVI.  THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  . . . 166 

XVII.  THOMAS  COLLIER  . . . .185 

XVIII.  PICTURES  BY  ORCHARDSON  . . 191 

XIX.  CHARLES  KEENE  ....  196 

XX.  PARIS  AND  FULLEYLOVE  . . . 199 

XXI.  D.  Y.  CAMERON  ....  207 

XXII.  STILL  LIFE 215 

XXIII.  THE  ART  OF  BRABAZON  . . . 217 

XXIV.  THE  PERSONALITY  OF  WATTS  . . 221 


Candid  Word  to  the  English 
Reader,  by  way  of  Preface 


A previous  book  of  my  assembled  essays — 
“ On  Books  and  Arts  ” — touched  on  Pictorial 
Art , the  Stage,  and  Literature . This  one 
ventures  to  be  altogether  about  Pictorial  Art, 
with  this  reservation  always  : that  to  my 
mind  no  writing  about  any  Art  is  other  than 
pedantic,  academic,  or  fragmentary — “ me- 
moir es  pour  servir,”  at  the  most — if  it  is  not 
based  on  vivid , irrepressible  interest  in  the 
Life  we  know. 

The  general  reader,  here  in  England — to 
whom  this  candid  word  is  with  much  esteem 
addressed — does  not  care  greatly  for  the 
writing  that  he  calls  “Art  Criticism  ” ; and 
often  I agree  with  him.  But  his  ideas  of 
what  Art  Criticism  is,  are  apt  to  be  narrow. 
To  two  fields  he  limits  it.  With  him,  Art 
Criticism — all  Criticism , indeed — is  primarily 
fault-finding.  Secondarily,  it  may  be  also, 


IX 


A CANDID  WORD 


per  adventure,  investigation.  But  the  investi- 
gation that  is  held  to  be  creditable — to  have 
conferred  distinction — is  generally  investiga- 
tion into  minor  facts  : little , disputed  points 
that  have  the  interest  of  uncertainty  and 
puzzle.  The  German,  perhaps,  is  responsible 
for  introducing,  or  for  making  much  of,  that 
order  of  Criticism  which  consists  of  slow  or 
fevered  debate,  between  two  or  more  learned 
persons  seldom  endowed  with  any  conspicuous 
faculty  for  Writing , as  to  whether  this  most 
second-rate  painter  or  that  one  did  veritably 
succeed  in  being  the  author  of  this  or  that 
most  second-rate  work. 

Masterpieces  do  not  very  often  require  or 
invite  this  method  of  treatment ; and  I confess 
that  masterpieces  seem  to  me  worthiest  of 
study,  and  likeliest  to  inspire  delight.  But 
this  method — this  order  of  Criticism — has,  in 
some  measure,  “ caught  on  ” amongst  us, 
because  in  England  the  contribution  of  an 
idea  is  ever  less  welcome,  as  it  is  also  ever 
less  easy,  than  the  contribution  of  a fact. 

Another  order  of  investigation  exists,  never- 
theless, although  it  may  not  be  so  well  assured 
of  the  every-day  reader's  respect.  I speak 
now  of  investigation  in  the  sense  of  an 


A CANDID  WORD 


elucidation  of  qualities , an  analysis  of  tem- 
perament, a presentation , in  full  light,  of  a 
character  or  an  achievement,  an  aim  or  a feat. 
That,  in  the  instinctive  opinion  of  the  every- 
day reader,  has  not  been,  and  cannot  be,  any 
great  part  of  Criticism.  It  is  a something, 
indeed,  scarcely  conceived  of  by  him — because 
it  is  the  Criticism  of  the  creative  Writer  : the 
criticism  of  Coleridge,  Baudelaire,  Gautier, 
Zola,  Anatole  France. 

I wonder,  Is  it  too  audacious  to  ask  the 
general  reader,  who  does  not  love  Art 
Criticism — and,  as  he  conceives  it,  most 
rightly  does  not  love  it — I wonder,  Is  it  too 
audacious  to  ask  him,  Does  he  really  love 
Art  ? Does  he  imagine  that  amongst  the 
English  Public  the  love  of  Art  itself — pictorial 
Art  or  literary — is  actually  as  widely  spread 
as  the  habit  of  talking  about  it  ? Is  it  a force 
in  English  Life — a resource  to  the  individual 
— a city  of  the  mind  to  which  he  can  retire 
when  buffetted  by  Fortune,  and  be  assured  of 
safety,  and  be  assured  of  charm  ? 

If  he  said,  Yes,  in  answer  to  that  question , 
I should  go  so  far  as  to  doubt  him.  I fear 
that  Art — pictorial  Art  or  literary — is  some- 
thing quite  outside  the  average  English 

xi 


A CANDID  WORD 


person,  who — mixing  in  a certain  world  at 
least — nevertheless  essays  to  talk  about  it ; 
may  enjoy  to  persuade  himself  that  he  admires 
it : especially  such  Art  as  happens  to  be  in 
fashion  when  he  talks  ; but  who y in  truth , is 
out  of  sympathy  with  ity  absolutely — receives , 
absorbs  it,  at  no  pore  of  all  his  skin — 
its  charm  a thing  apart  from  him — that  keeps 
its  secret — to  which  he  has  never  access. 

Art ■ — which  is  the  invention  or  re-arrange- 
ment of  Beauty,  by  the  hand  or  brain  of  man — 
is,  in  the  opinion  of  the  average  citizen,  an 
unimportant  thing.  The  average  citizen,  in 
giving,  in  his  real  mind,  to  Art  of  every  kind 
a minor  place — a place  rather  begrudged 
than  willingly  conceded — is  convinced,  I 
generally  observe,  of  his  wisdom  in  so  dealing 
with  it.  Instead  of  suspecting  the  shallow- 
ness of  his  own  nature  or  training,  that 
allows  him  such  dealing,  he  congratulates 
himself  upon  solidity  and  depth.  He  is 
concerned  with  “ real  life,”  he  considers. 
He  is  “ matter  of  fact!'  But  when  I look 
around,  and  see  those  matters  of  fact  which 
do  really  engage  his  attention,  I confess 
myself  not  promptly  reassured.  What  are 
the  matters  that  he  thinks  important — the 

xii 


A CANDID  WORD 


matters  on  his  mind , say , when  he  has  done 
with  his  work  ? 

To  get  an  answer  to  that  question , I turn 
to  the  newspapers — to  the  papers  especially  the 
plain  man  reads.  Even  the  newspaper  pla- 
cards. What  better  source  of  enlightenment  ? 
For  the  Editor  of  the  plain  man's  newspaper 
is  above  all  things  a discerner  of  the  plain 
man's  taste — a caterer  for  it.  What  he,  or 
his  subordinate,  puts  on  the  placards,  I take 
as  an  answer  to  my  question.  I did  so 
take  it,  I recollect,  last  Summer,  with  a 
result  not  altogether  satisfactory. 

One  would  at  first  have  thought  differently . 
For  what  I read  upon  the  u posters,"  the  first 
hour  of  my  enquiry,  seemed  serious,  even 
alarming,  and  it  had  made  its  impression . 
“ A Bad  Beginning,"  one  of  the  authorities 
announced.  What  was  that  ? “ Critical 

Position  of  England ,"  I read,  with  trepidation, 
on  the  placard  of  another.  Then  for  a while 
there  was  suspense  and  restlessness.  “ Jack- 
son  saves  England,"  was  the  next  announce- 
ment, bringing  sudden  relief — heartfelt  thanks 
to  some  warrior,  or  diplomatist,  was  it, 
of  whom  one  had  never  heard  ? Impossible, 
of  course , to  avoid  regretting  the  condition 

xiii 


A CANDID  WORD 


of  things  that  had  required  this  great  man's 
activity — “ Bad  Beginning  “ Critical  Posi- 
tion ” ; our  country  in  so  desperate  a case. 
Impossible,  likewise , to  check  abruptly  one's 
pride,  one's  joy , one's  vast  elation  of  spirit 
— for  “ Jackson  Saves  England ." 

It  was  Cricket ! 

That  was  a week,  it  happens,  in  which  the 
average  citizen,  had  his  outlook  been  quite 
as  wide  and  as  alert  as  he  imagines,  would 
have  been  concerned  with  a most  vital 
thing.  It  was  that  July  week  in  which — or 
so  at  least  reflective  people  had  reason  to 
suppose — there  lay  in  the  balance  Peace  and 
War  in  Europe.  The  question  of  Morocco , 
the  attitude  of  Germany.  Could  Germany's 
demands  be  listened  to  ? Peace  or  War  ? 
And  if  War,  then  the  uncertainty  of  the 
result.  Might  it  all  end  in  the  clock  of 
Civilization  being  put  back  five  hundred 
years  ? Germany  ? France  ? 

To  the  man  in  the  street — more  or  less 
to  the  average  citizen,  more  or  less  to  the 
general  reader — that  did  not  apparently 
matter.  All  that  long  summer  day  his 
interest  was  in  a wider  field.  i(  Jackson 
saves  England." 


XIV 


A CANDID  WORD 


In  presence  of  this  wisdom y I am  not 
inclined  to  attach  any  overweening  import- 
ance to  the  average  citizen's  opinions  about 
Art.  When  I discover  that  it  is  my  mis- 
fortune to  differ  with  him y I confess  myself 
inclined  to  go  in  quietude y with  no  especial 
heart-sear  chings  y along  my  own  way  : to  take 
my  own  viewy  I meany  of  great  artistic 
personalities  and  little  ones  ; to  be  not  over- 
timid  in  expressing  it ; to  be  occasionally 
even  rather  indifferent  to  the  degree  in  which 
my  view  is  favoured  with  acceptance.  With 
much  of  fashionable  Art  I am  in  little 
sympathy ; but  I have  beheld  the  fall  of 
certain  English  Prce-Raphaelites y who  were 
fashionable  once — may  I not  behold  the 
fall  of  some  Italian  Primitives  fashionable 
to-day?  I have  seen  the  genius  of  Whistler 
abused  or  laughed  at  ; and  now  his  poorest 
work  is  sought  for  with  the  eagerness  that 
should  be  devoted  to  the  acquisition  of  his 
best ; and  halls  that  held  a jumble  of  the  fine 
and  the  inferior  have  been  crowded  by  gazers 
who  still  half-wonderedy  but  were  quite 
determined  to  admire. 

It  would  be  a satisfaction  to  suppose  that 
as  Time  passed , as  opportunities  increased 9 

XV 


A CANDID  WORD 


there  was  amongst  the  large  English  Public 
some  appreciable  progress  in  tasteful  percep- 
tion and  in  sincere  and  personal  enjoyment 
of  the  things  of  Art.  Honestly , I cannot 

aver  that  this  satisfaction  is  mine  There  is 
something  in  our  Race  that  makes  it  a 
difficulty  to  extract  either  from  the  admitted 
bourgeois  or  the  “ cultivated  ” person  who  has 
rushed  to  Siena  or  the  Lombard  plains,  any 
judgment  upon  Art  comparable  in  sagacity 
or  clearness  with  that  of  the  first  artisan  you 
may  collar  in  the  first  French  provincial 
Museum. 

Little  can  those  of  us  to  whom  Art  is  a 
part  of  Being , welcome  the  parrot-like  repeti- 
tion of  admiration  scholastically  gained  for 
some  performance  whose  appeal  may  be  of 
History  or  Antiquity , but  is  not  of  Beauty  at 
all.  Enjoyment , were  it  genuine , would  be 
displayed  much  oftener  in  face  of  the  Art  that 
records  something  of  the  full  and  varied  Life 
we  know.  It  would  be  given  in  more  generous 
measure  to  the  fresh  and  individual  vision 
of  the  common  land  and  every-day  skies, 
of  country  and  of  town,  of  hill  and  coast 
— to  the  pourtrayal,  with  the  resources  of 
the  newer  technique,  of  the  characters,  the 


XVI 


A CANDID  WORD 


charms , the  pleasant  faults  even , 0/  ^ people 
who  move  us  to-day. 

But  I do  not  discern  in  average  English 
folk  any  encouraging  growth  of  sensitiveness 
to  the  vision  of  these  things.  Have  they 
their  eyes  on  the  real  object  ? Have  they 
their  fingers — I sometimes  ask  myself — on 
the  real  pulse  ? 

F.  W. 


April,  1906. 


*-(*314) 


xvu 


Whistler  and  Others 


i 

THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER 

It  is  now  some  time  since  by  the  death  of 
one  who  was  a man  of  genius  and  of  pro- 
found individuality — the  terms  are  almost 
synonymous — the  world  that  talks  of  Art 
was  set  to  wondering  what  it  was  that  had 
been  really  lost.  So  different,  so  opposed, 
have  been  the  comments  of  people  who 
have  seized  a pen,  that  the  wonder,  the 
uncertainty,  must  have  lasted.  Who  had 
indeed  gone  ? Was  it  a Master  who  had 
brought  a revelation,  and  who  held  the 
key  to  all  truths  ; a greater  painter  than 
Velasquez  ; the  peer,  more  than  the  peer, 
of  Rembrandt  ? Or  was  it  a mannerist, 
smart  merely,  merely  showy — a painter 
and  etcher  sworn  to  eccentricity,  and 
whom  nothing  but  the  sincerity  of  his 
shallow  opinions  saved  from  the  disgrace 
of  the  charlatan  ? 


1 


2 


WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Really,  it  was  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other — but  that  is  a fact  which  the 
English  public  is  not  greatly  to  be  blamed 
for  not  having  promptly  discerned.  Whistler 
was  condemned  on  the  one  hand — con- 
demned : nay,  often  actually  ignored — by 
the  fogey  of  4 4 academic  ” prejudice,  or 
“ scientific  ” investigation  ; by  the  adorer 
of  such  beauty  as  may  have  had  the  luck 
to  be  consecrated  by  an  existence  of  at 
least  four  hundred  years — by  the  student 
who  persuades  himself  that  the  garb  of  the 
Antiquary  suffices  for  the  pose  of  the 
Connoisseur.  Whistler  was  praised — 
praised  without  qualification — on  the  other 
hand,  by  sectarian  painters  steeped  in  no 
knowledge,  breathing  no  air  but  that  of  the 
modern  studio.  Their  opinions  had  no 
basis ; their  judgments  no  justification  ; 
they  recorded  their  votes  without  claim  ; 
no  franchise  was  theirs.  And  everybody 
who  had  known  Whistler  a little,  and  had 
an  anecdote  or  two  about  him,  was  trans- 
formed, in  imagination,  into  his  chosen 
friend  ; and  while  recording,  with  remunera- 
tive reverence,  quite  the  most  trivial  of  his 
words  and  deeds,  these  chosen  ones  would 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  3 


have  us  understand  that  it  was  they  who 
were  responsible  for  nearly  everything 
serious  that  the  artist  had  done.  Over  a 
closed  grave,  was  there  ever  before  such 
effusive  pushing  or  pressure  ? This  man 
had  known  Whistler,  and  had  served  him 
years  ago.  Everything  that  Whistler  had 
done  excellently  had  been  done  in  those 
years.  That  man  was  the  boon  confidant 
of  later  days.  Before  those  days,  nothing 
was  known  surely — before  then,  everything 
was  myth.  So,  egotists  disputed ; so, 
Nobodies  were  advertised.  And  the  true 
Whistler  after  all  ? To  be  discerned  not 
then  : not  then  to  be  indicated. 

And  now  the  dust  is  laid  ; the  clamour 
hushed.  It  may  be  possible,  now,  to  form 
a judgment  with  justice — to  express  it  with 
calm. 

Even  those  who  have  had  only  a casual 
acquaintance  with  the  life  performance  of 
Whistler  must  have  been  struck  with  the 
variety  of  the  mediums  used  by  him  for 
its  accomplishment.  It  is  almost  easier  to 
name  those  channels  of  expression  he 
avoided  than  those  that  he  employed. 
He  did  not  work  in  Mezzotint.  He 


4 


WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


did  not  work  in  Line  Engraving.  The 
rare,  yet  occasionally  revived  practice  of 
Silver-point  Drawing  he  never  resorted  to. 
But  he  painted  in  Oils  ; he  painted  in  Water 
Colour  ; Pastels  he  made  so  admirably  that 
he  may  even  be  held  responsible  for  “prettily 
spurring  on  " some  heavier-footed  comrades 
to  make  them  very  badly  ; dainty  was  his 
touch  with  the  Pencil ; with  Fantin-Latour 
he  shares  the  honours  of  the  happy  revival 
of  artistic  Lithography  ; and  in  the  art  of 
Etching,  whatever  may  have  been  his 
limitations,  his  place,  by  reason  of  his 
qualities,  is  by  the  side  of  Rembrandt  and 
Mery  on. 

What  was  the  cause  of  Whistler's  always 
enterprising,  experimental  employment  of 
as  many  mediums  as  I have  named — each 
with  its  own  special  conditions,  its  technical 
difficulties  ? Industry  was  not  the  cause. 
For  upon  the  merely  industrious  Whistler 
poured  out  his  scorn.  Industr}^  may  be  an 
“ endowment  of  the  duffer."  Work  must 
“ excuse  itself  by  its  quality."  Apart  from 
quality,  work  had  for  Whistler  no  virtue. 
Amusement  he  understood — laughter — 
companionableness — indolence  even.  But 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  5 


work — mere  work — Adam's  curse,  under 
the  shadow  of  which  it  was  foolish,  if  not 
criminal,  for  Man  to  remain.  No  ! 

There  were  in  effect  two  reasons  that 
prompted  Whistler  to  the  exercise  of 
mediums  so  numerous — to  the  acquisition 
of  the  various  technical  skill  those  mediums 
demanded.  One  of  them  was  his  possession 
of  an  extraordinarily  deep  artistic  sense  of 
the  appropriate  and  the  fitting.  So  much 
an  artist  was  he,  that  hardly  once  in  his  long 
career  did  he  mistake,  misuse,  the  medium 
in  which  was  to  be  executed  with  delight 
his  given,  momentary  task.  Another 
reason  was  his  enjoyment  of  change. 
Pertinacity  did  not  desert  him,  when  pertina- 
city was  wanted.  But  he  loved  change. 
He  hated  grooves.  They  were  fatal  to 
freshness ; fatal  to  spontaneity.  Though 
he  did  not  invent,  he  would  surely  have 
approved  of  the  dictum,  “ Failure  is  to  form 
habits."  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  his 
emblem  was  the  butterfty.  The  “ soul  of 
things,"  if  you  like  ; but  at  least  a soul 
inconstant,  transitory  ; flitting  here,  flitting 
there  ; and  so  alive.  That  he  was  volatile 
— in  his  way  almost  feminine — counts  for 


6 


WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


a part  of  his  charm.  He  had  Watteau’s 
sensitiveness,  and  a lighter  wit.  Not  his — 
it  never  could  have  been  his — the  soul  of 
Holbein — the  unshaken  soul  of  Dfirer. 

Unless  it  be  thanks  only  to  some  half- 
dozen  masterpieces,  not  as  a painter,  not 
as  a stern  draughtsman  of  the  figure,  will 
Whistler  live  by  the  side  of  the  greatest 
artists  on  wall  surface  or  canvas,  or  on  the 
sheet  of  drawing  paper.  If  to  realise  with 
precision  either  texture  or  anatomy  was 
not  in  truth  his  aim,  scarcely  more  was  it 
his  aim — though  indeed  it  was  occasionally 
his  achievement — to  sound  the  depths  of 
character.  Character  was  not  the  thing  in 
life  that  most  interested  him.  If  it  had 
been,  Dramatic  Painting  and  Anecdote 
Painting,  with  their  inevitable  approach  to 
some  qualities  or  functions  of  Literature, 
would  not  have  annoyed  him  so  much.  I 
am  not  disparaging  for  a moment  the 
painting  he  liked,  the  painting  he  practised 
— I am  only  trying  to  define  what  it  was, 
and  what  it  was  not.  It  had  first  of  all  to 
be  Decorative — decorative  it  succeeded  in 
being.  Whatever  it  represented,  it  was 
suffered,  tolerated,  approved,  by  himself, 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  7 


on  condition  that  it  was  at  least  an  agreeable 
pattern  of  colour  and  line.  Nature  sug- 
gested it ; but  it  was  not  bound  by  Nature. 
Fact  was  in  it,  in  abundance — fact  most 
penetratingly  seen — but  from  the  fetters 
of  fact  its  freedom  was  expressly  and 
constantly  declared.  The  grass  was  too 
green,  Boucher  said  to  Lancret.  And 
Lancret  answered,  “ Je  suis  de  votre  senti- 
ment ; la  Nature  manque  d’harmonie  et 
de  seduction.”  Harmony  must  be  given 
seductiveness  given,  Whistler  opined  and 
protested  ; and  his  art,  sometimes  boldly 
accepting  Nature,  sometimes  exquisitely 
refines  on,  and  sometimes  brilliantly  rejects 
it. 

But  that  is  not  the  attitude  of  mind  of  a 
great  painter  generally,  unless  he  be  a 
decorative  painter,  only  or  mainly  : unless 
he  be,  for  instance,  to  name  artists  of 
different  ideals,  yet  with  this  one  thing  in 
common,  a Tintoret,  a Veronese,  a Pietro  da 
Cortona,  a Boucher,  a Puvis  de  Chavannes. 
Of  Whistler,  it  was  constantly  the  attitude 
of  mind  ; and  among  the  very  greatest 
decorative  painters  of  the  world  he  might 
have  been,  had  he  had  Tintoret’s  opulent 


8 


WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


palette,  or  the  majesty  of  Veronese's  sweep- 
ing draughtsmanship,  or  the  remote,  suave, 
restful  dignity  of  the  design  of  Puvis  de 
Chavannes. 

His  principle  that  a pictorial  work  must 
before  everything  be  decorative,  he  applied 
in  different  degrees.  Frankly  and  simply 
decorative  he  was  but  on  rare  occasions — 
the  greatest  of  them,  the  opportunity  best 
offered  and  best  seized,  being  the  occasion 
that  presented  itself  when  he  had  his  way 
with  Mr.  Leyland’s  dining-room,  and,  begin- 
ning, I believe,  with  the  modest  aim  of 
accommodating  a little  the  work  already 
there  to  some  framed  work  of  his  that  was 
to  be  hung  amongst  it,  wrought  gradually, 
yet  with  a perfection  as  complete  as  if  one 
thought  had  guided  him  from  the  beginning 
— wrought  gradually  the  “ Peacock  Room." 
Much  oftener,  in  cabinet  picture,  in  framed 
canvas,  whether  definite  and  professed 
portrait,  or  pleasant  grouping  of  draped 
models,  or  vision  of  the  Town  or  River  in 
grey  daylight  or  in  the  mystery  of  night  or 
dawn,  his  painting,  decorative  undoubtedly, 
was  a concession — no  abandonment  of 
principle,  but  a compromise  that  recognised 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  9 


the  rights  of  Truth  and  of  Fancy.  For  Fact 
and  Beauty — so  often  incompatible — he 
found  a modus  vivendi.  Sometimes  much 
effort,  much  invention,  much  ingenuity — 
what  he  would  have  called  much  “ science  " 
— was  required  to  make  this  compromise 
effective  : and  there  were  alwa}^s  required 
instinct  and  fine  taste.  But  sometimes  of 
obvious,  necessary  effort  there  was  very 
little  ; Nature  herself  sang  in  tune  ; and 
so  we  have  such  a picture  as  Mr.  Alexander's 
“ Nocturne  in  Silver  and  Blue,"  Mr. 
McCulloch's  “ Valparaiso  Harbour,"  or  the 
silvery  and  brown-grey  vision  of  “ London 
in  Ice." 

I am  not  sure  that  “ Nature  sang  in  tune  " 
when  she  created  Thomas  Carlyle — or  was 
the  fault  that  of  circumstances  ? Anyhow 
it  is  instructive  to  reflect  upon  the  effort 
that  was  needed,  that  was  made,  and  finely 
concealed,  when  Mr.  Whistler  built  up 
gradually  that  Carlyle  portrait  whose 
pathetic  simplicity  is  the  adornment  of 
Glasgow.  I hope  the  Corporation  of 
Glasgow,  which  had  the  wisdom  to  buy  the 
portrait,  has  had  the  wisdom  to  buy  also  a 
first  drawing  for  it,  that  was  exhibited 


10 


WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


at  the  Goupil  Gallery ; so  that  the  con- 
trast may  for  students  be  discernible  between 
the  Carlyle  of  the  first  impression,  the  Carlyle 
of  obvious  fact,  the  prosaic  Carlyle — a 
“ grave  liver/’  indeed,  in  Wordsworth’s 
phrase,  but  mainly  still  the  thoughtful 
peasant — and  the  Carlyle  of  the  great 
portrait-painter’s  poetry,  the  Carlyle  of 
Whistler’s  completed  vision. 

And  because  I have  said  already  that 
Character  was  not  the  thing  in  which 
Whistler  was  chiefly  interested,  I am  the 
more  anxious  to  protest  that  when  it  did 
interest  him  his  understanding  of  it  was 
profound.  His  portrait  of  his  Mother — 
lodged  happily  in  the  Luxembourg — is  a 
masterpiece  of  refinement  and  quietude, 
of  resignation  and  reverie.  When  character 
interested  him,  it  was  generally  either  the 
naivete  or  pretty  pensiveness  of  Youth,  or 
the  accumulated  experience,  the  wisdom 
and  the  tenderness,  of  an  Age  that  still  stops 
short  of  a too  visible  decay.  For  the  first, 
see  the  “ Little  Rose  of  Lyme  Regis,”  or 
the  etching  of  “ Fanny  Leyland.”  For  the 
last,  see  the  sprightly  elderliness  of  the 
“ Mere  Gerard  ” — in  an  etching  again — 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  11 


and  the  etching  of  “ La  Vieille  aux  Loques,” 
which  it  is  true  is  the  record  of  a counten- 
ance and  figure  into  which  the  sadness  of 
some  incapacity — be  it  only  that  of  very 
deep  fatigue — has  already  stolen.  “ The 
Master  Smith  of  Lyme  Regis  ” — a brawny 
being,  painted  with  the  full  sympathy  of 
any  great  artist  for  any  excellent  craftsman 
— is  an  instance  of  Whistler's  rarer  but  still 
occasional  interest  in  the  character  of 
middle-aged  people  who,  while  he  paints 
them,  are  yet  in  the  stress  and  in  the 
noonday  heat  of  life.  And  so  again  there 
is  the  “ Sarasate.” 

Perfect  indeed  are  certain  of  the  perform- 
ances of  Whistler  in  Painting ; and  I have 
mentioned  most  of  these,  and  in  doing  so  I 
have  not  been  able  to  avoid  mentioning  too, 
already,  two  or  three  of  the  Etchings — the 
etchings  perfect  in  so  much  greater  propor- 
tion, and  perfect  in  so  much  greater  number. 
But  before  I discuss  them  in  even  such  little 
detail  as  is  permissible  in  this  essay,  another 
word  about  the  Painting,  and  a word,  too, 
that  is  of  general  application  to  the  range 
of  Whistler’s  art. 

A master  not  so  much  of  every  difficult 


12  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


problem  of  draughtsmanship,  as  of  Com- 
position in  line  and  in  mass,  as  of  refined  and 
broad  expressive  brushwork,  as  of  colour, 
as,  above  all,  of  tone,  Whistler — in  the  main 
original,  profoundly — did  submit  conspicu- 
ously, in  the  course  of  his  life,  to  two 
influences — to  two,  I mean,  other  than 
that  of  Velasquez,  which  the  “ Miss 
Cicely  Alexander  ” most  betrays  and 
most  brilliantly  profits  by.  He  submitted 
to  the  influence  of  Albert  Moore,  and 
to  that  of  the  art  of  Japan.  It  is  im- 
portant that  both  these  influences  should 
be  recognised — the  second  jumps  to  the 
surface  in  the  “ Princesse  du  Pays  de  la 
Porcelaine  ” and  in  “ The  Golden  Screen  ” 
— it  is  important  also  that  their  limitations 
should  be  acknowledged  : they  did  not,  in 
truth,  last  very  long,  or  extend  very  far. 
The  various  “ Symphonies  in  White  ” — the 
more  intricate  of  them  especially — betray 
the  influence  of  Albert  Moore  ; as  to  whom 
I have  been  asked  whether  indeed  it  was 
Whistler  who  influenced  him,  or  he  who 
influenced  Whistler.  It  was  the  latter,  of 
course ; and  that  is  shown  not  only  in  certain 
of  the  paintings,  but  in  a good  many  pastels 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  13 


— outline  drawings  of  the  figure,  with  a large 
Classic  grace — and  that  large  Classic  grace 
is  just  asserted,  but  not  so  well  asserted, 
in  one  figure-etching  of  the  Leyland  or  Early 
Middle  period — the  “ Model  Resting  ” — 
and  it  is  asserted  again  much  later  and  much 
better,  and  this  in  part  because  the  medium 
is  more  suited  to  it,  in  two  or  three  of  the 
Lithographs. 

So  much  for  influences.  I have  named 
the  chief  ones — I do  not  pretend  to  have 
exhausted  them.  For  instance,  not  only 
through  Albert  Moore,  and  Albert  Moore's 
devotion  to  the  art  of  Phidias,  did  the 
genius  of  Whistler  receive  the  nourishment 
of  the  Classic.  “ Je  prends  mon  bien  ou  je 
le  trouve,”  and  the  Greek  Classic  directly, 
and  Tanagra  perhaps  most  of  all,  had  their 
say  in  the  formation  and  the  exercise  of  the 
genius  of  Whistler.  Nor — as  I have  shown 
already — is  it  pretended  that  Velasquez,  nor 
is  it  conceivable  that  Rembrandt,  passed 
before  the  eye  of  this  alert  and  ever  flexible 
practitioner  and  had  no  effect  on  his 
practice.  Now,  however,  for  the  mediums 
in  which,  more  even  than  in  Paint,  was 
manifested  the  brilliant  vision  of  Whistler, 


14  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


and  his  unfailing  Virtuoso's  skill.  These 
mediums  are  Etching  and  Lithography. 

And  first,  and  because,  thus  far,  in  Critical 
Writing  it  has  been  dwelt  upon  least,  we 
will  turn  to  his  work  in  Lithography — a 
medium  that  Whistler  never  touched  until 
his  Early  Middle  period,  and  in  which  he 
laboured  most  largely  (or  enjoyed  himself 
oftenest)  in  his  later  time.  What — as  its 
very  name  implies — what  is  Lithography 
but  Drawing  ? It  is  Drawing  that  can  be 
duplicated,  multiplied — passed  on  in  this 
way,  in  essence,  to  several  or  even  to  many 
possessors — passed  on  with  the  intervention 
of  only  the  thinnest  of  veils  ; of  no  veil, 
practically.  As  in  Etching,  each  owner 
of  an  impression  is  practically  the  owner  of 
the  original  work.  The  drawing  made  by 
the  artist  upon  the  stone,  or,  in  more  recent 
days,  upon  the  transfer  paper  whence  the 
work  is  to  pass  to  the  stone,  may  not  in 
every  case  be  exactly  what  it  would  be  if 
Printing  had  not  to  be  considered.  Printing 
has,  no  doubt,  to  be  considered  ; but  out  of 
it  the  artists  in  Lithography,  the  rare 
men  who  know  Lithography’s  capacities — 
Fant:n-Latour,  or  Whistler,  or  younger 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  15 


artists,  Charles  Shannon  or  Belleroche — can 
actually  wring  an  advantage  ; and  (I  must 
almost  apologise  for  saying  so)  there  is  the 
greatest  difference  in  the  world,  the  most 
essential  difference,  between  Lithography 
practised  as  a craft — the  print  issued 
roughly  for  the  music-seller — and  Litho- 
graphy practised  as  an  art  by  those  whose 
is  the  honour  of  having  best  revived  a 
method  which  had  been  abased,  for  the 
most  part,  during  two  generations. 

Speaking  broadly,  it  may  be  said  that  in 
Lithography,  Whistler — ever  alive,  as  I 
have  urged  before,  to  the  limitations  of  a 
medium,  as  well  as  to  its  opportunities — 
dealt  with  themes  less  varied  than  those  he 
dealt  with  in  Etching,  and  dealt  with  them 
far  less  intricately.  The  Lithograph  has 
the  simplicity  of  the  chalk  or  washed  draw- 
ing. It  is  addressed  then,  by  the  expert 
in  its  practice,  to  only  such  subjects  as  its 
simplicity  suits.  But  even  here  there  are 
differences  ; and  I admit  that  the  other 
illustrious  or  brilliant  Moderns  whom  I have 
mentioned — Fantin,  Shannon,  Belleroche — 
have  sometimes  carried  Lithography  to  a 
complexity  of  expression  and  statement 

3-(*3»4) 


16  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


which  Whistler  reserved  for  Etching.  Still, 
even  with  them,  Lithography  is,  in  its  theme 
and  aim,  simple  comparatively  ; and  with 
Whistler,  save  perhaps  on  two  or  three 
occasions,  it  is  simple  altogether. 

The  “ two  or  three  occasions  ” must  be 
held  to  include  those  hours  in  which 
Whistler — it  was  in  the  early  days  of  his 
lithographic  practice — wrought  the  “ Lime- 
house/ ' murky,  clouded,  splendidly  brown, 
with  the  shabby  sheds  and  the  mass  of  the 
flowing  water  (what  an  illustration  that 
would  have  made  for  the  River  scenes  of 
Our  Mutual  Friend , if  Whistler  had  con- 
descended to  illustrate  !)  and  wrought  the 
grey-blue  “ Nocturne,”  with  the  River  mist 
over  town  and  tower,  and  the  peace  of  the 
great  expanse  of  seemingly  sleeping  stream. 
The  possessor  of  a lithograph  by  Whistler  is 
the  possessor  of  his  drawing,  and  some  of 
the  very  finest  of  Whistler’s  drawings — 
these  two  I have  just  mentioned,  and  “ The 
Broad  Bridge  ” and  “ The  Tall  Bridge  ” 
also — were  made  in  lithography.  Mr.  Way 
and  Mr.  Dennis  tell  us,  in  that  pleasant  little 
book  on  Whistler  which,  without  being  an 
actually  unprejudiced,  an  actually  adequate 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  17 


study,  is  yet,  as  a whole,  save  M.  Theodore 
Duret’s,  the  only  serious,  single-minded 
contribution  to  men’s  knowledge  of  the 
master  that  has  been  received  in  book  form 
since  his  death — Mr.  Way  and  Mr.  Dennis 
tell  us,  I say,  that  quite  marvellous  was 
Whistler’s  perception  of  the  exact  effect 
that  work  upon  the  stone,  or  upon  transfer 
paper,  would  produce  in  printing.  Whistler 
knew  more  than  the  professional  craftsman. 
And  they  tell  us,  too,  with  reference  to  the 
sometimes  disputed  matter  of  the  transfer 
paper,  that  even  when  the  artist  drew  on 
that  in  the  first  instance,  and  saw,  in  proofs, 
things  that  were  lacking  or  things  that  were 
exaggerated,  he  would  make  his  corrections 
upon  the  stone  itself,  and  so,  of  certain  of 
his  lithographs — his  later  ones  especially — 
he  produced  different  “ States,”  though  it 
is  not  easy  to  expressly  define  them,  and 
though  these  differences  were  of  course  but 
the  exceptions.  And  whereas  very  often, 
though  of  course  not  always,  in  Etchings— 
Whistler’s  or  other  people’s — the  earlier 
State  is  finer  than  the  later,  in  these  litho- 
graphs, generally  speaking,  the  later  real 
“ State  ” is  finer  than  the  earlier. 


18  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


To  give  an  instance,  I have  seen  an  Early 
State  of  “ The  Smith  of  the  Rue  du 
Dragon,”  bare,  naked,  incomplete — the 
central  darkness  of  the  actual  doorway  too 
much  unconnected  with  any  tone  on  the 
wall ; and  I have  seen  a later  State 
with  that  relation  established,  with  no 
crudity  anywhere — with  that  effect  re- 
alised which  the  master  had  intended,  or 
which  he  saw  was  the  finest.  He  had 
worked  in  the  interval.  And  so,  with  a 
care  of  detail  consummate,  but  with  an 
impulse  ever  fresh,  an  impulse  one  and 
indivisible,  were  wrought  and  issued,  in 
most  limited  numbers,  such  little  marvels 
of  original  Lithography  as  the  “ Little  Nude 
Model  Reading,”  the  “ Dancing  Girl,”  the 
slightly  draped  model  standing  against  a 
balustrade,  the  slightly  draped  model 
seated  with  legs  apart,  the  “ Pantheon,” 
the  “ Steps  of  the  Luxembourg,”  the 
“ Smith's  Yard,  Lyme  Regis,”  with  its  two 
horses  seen  from  behind — a drawing  of 
horses  which  not  even  Stubbs,  not  even 
James  Ward,  could  have  beaten. 

The  care  bestowed  on  the  completion  and 
the  printing  of  the  Lithographs  has  now 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  19 


been  indicated.  It  has  long  been  matter 
of  history  that  a like  care  was  given  always 
to  the  Etchings.  Always,  when  opportunity 
allowed.  Whistler  is  not  responsible  for 
the  grey,  cold  printing  of  the  Thames  set  of 
Etchings,  through  Ellis  and  White,  nor  for 
the  heavier  subsequent  printing  of  Goulding. 
He  is  responsible  only  for  the  Early  Proofs 
of  those  Thames  Etchings.  In  Paris,  for 
the  first  impressions  of  the  French  Set, 
Belatre  of  course  served  him  well  and  very 
well  was  printed  by  Goulding  the  Second 
State  of  the  “ Marchande  de  Moutarde  ” 
— of  which  the  First  had  been  done  perfectly 
abroad — but  as  a rule  it  is  to  Whistler's 
own  printing  that  we  must  have  recourse  if 
we  are  to  see  his  Etchings  quite  at  their 
best — the  fine  fleur  of  his  quite  exquisite 
Art,  and  the  dessus  du  panier. 

For  Whistler  printed  most  differently 
each  plate ; sometimes  most  differently 
each  separate  impression.  He  painted 
on  the  plate  as  much  as  printed  on  it. 
Take  an  impression  of  one  of  the 
“ Venice  ” set,  printed  by  the  time  that 
dexterous  little  labours  had  perfected 
the  copper,  and  at  the  time  that  Whistler 


20  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


himself  knew  best  how  to  print  it.  That 
impression — free  from  the  faults  that  pro- 
voked a certain  measure  of  criticism  and 
disapproval  from  those  of  us  who  were  on 
the  whole  only  too  desirous  to  applaud  and 
admire — represents  the  plate  perfectly. 
The  “ Little  Venice/'  say.  Here  scarcely  a 
line  has  been  added  ; but  the  plate  “ prints" 
and  the  plate  began  by  not  printing  ; and 
Whistler  by  this  time  has  called  into  requisi- 
tion the  resources  of  ink — the  plate  is 
painted  with  ink  : it  is  wiped  exactly  where 
wiping  adds  to  the  effect  of  it ; and  so  we 
have,  as  no  one  else  could  have  given  it  to 
us,  “ Little  Venice  " in  its  perfection.  Just 
as  much,  of  course,  in  the  Set  of  Twenty-six 
Etchings,  the  “ San  Biagio,"  and  that 
marvellous  piece,  “ The  Garden,"  or,  to 
give  instances  from  later  work,  the  fasci- 
nating Amsterdam  Canal  scene,  “ Pierrot," 
the  singularly  spirited  sketch  of  the  Tour 
St.  Antoine  at  Loches,  or  the  pleasant 
jumble  of  “ Southampton  Docks  " — a 
brilliant  little  plate  in  the  set  that  was 
done  to  commemorate  the  Great  Queen's 
first  Jubilee. 

Whistler,  who  wrought  about  a hundred 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  21 


and  fifty  Lithographs,  wrought  in  all 
something  like  four  hundred  Etchings. 
Some  few  have  not  as  yet  been 
catalogued,  notwithstanding  the  existence 
in  America — thanks  to  the  scrupulous  care 
of  Mr.  E.  G.  Kennedy  and  Mr.  Howard 
Mansfield — of  a Supplement  to  the  Second 
Edition  of  the  Study  and  Catalogue  which 
is  mine.  He  etched  from  1857,  more  or  less 
for  forty  years.  And  the  work,  even 
more  abundant  than  Rembrandt's,  has 
at  least  Rembrandt's  variety  of  theme 
and  of  method.  It  has  much  more 
than  Meryon’s  variety,  and  it  is  many 
times  as  abundant — reckoning  by  the 
number  of  plates,  I mean — as  the  work 
of  that  sombre  and  splendid  genius.  To 
contribute  a little  to  the  fixing  of  Whistler's 
place,  it  behoves  us  to  pass  in  review — not 
lengthily  indeed — this  Etched  Work  ; to 
say  something  as  to  its  periods,  something  as 
to  its  characteristics. 

The  familiar  Three  Periods — a number  as 
customary  as  the  “ three  courses  " generally 
open  to  the  Gladstonian  politician — may 
here  with  advantage  be  extended  to  Four. 
In  my  thought  I group,  for  convenience. 


22  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Whistler’s  etched  work  as  belonging  to  the 
Early,  to  the  Early-middle,  to  the  Late- 
Middle,  or  to  the  Late  Period.  To  the  first 
of  these  times  belong  the  so-called  “ French 
Set,”  and  that  popular,  that  for  once  both 
admirable  and  popular,  f ‘ Thames  Set,” 
which,  until  Messrs.  Obach’s  brilliant 
exhibition  of  two  or  three  Autumns  ago, 
represented,  for  most  people  who  were 
not  special  students,  the  highwater  mark 
of  Whistler’s  achievement.  It  was  the 
Set  they  knew  and  cared  about.  It  was, 
as  I have  just  indicated,  an  admirable 
performance,  and  it  was  a performance  the 
world  was  ready  to  receive. 

To  that  Early  Period,  to  that  first  time, 
belong  then  these  two  Sets  : the  second 
with  its  infinitely  interesting  “ Pool,” 
“ Thames  Police,”  “ Thames  Warehouses,” 
and  “ Black  Lion  Wharf  ” ; the  first  with 
its  “ Vieille  aux  Loques,”  its  “ Marchande 
de  Moutarde,”  and  a few  allied  pieces 
scarcely,  to  the  seeing  eye,  less  attractive — 
the  exquisite  little  still-life  piece,  “ The 
Wine  Glass,”  for  instance  ; a performance 
in  which,  for  once,  and  for  once  only^ 
Whistler  with  a plate  as  notable  as  the 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  23 


“ Damier  ” of  Rembrandt  or  the  “ Muffs  ” 
of  Hollar,  tried  to  rival,  and  succeeded  in 
rivalling,  the  achievement,  in  Painting,  of 
De  Heym. 

The  Early  Middle  is  very  much  what  has 
been  known  as  the  “ Leyland  ” period — 
thanks  to  the  artist’s  close  association  with 
the  Leyland  family,  at  that  time.  Many  of 
the  pieces  are  dry-points.  They  aim  above 
all  things  at  breadth — breadth,  and  it  may 
be  atmosphere.  Rightly  was  Dry-point 
employed.  The  portrait  prints  of  all  the 
Leylands  belong  to  this  period.  To  this 
time  belongs  the  extreme,  the  perhaps  even 
exaggerated  simplicity  of  the  “ London 
Bridge,”  and  the  tranquil  amplitude  of 
“ The  Large  Pool,”  and  “ Price’s  Candle 
Works  ” in  its  early  and  rare  condition. 
To  this  time  belongs  the  beautiful  sketch, 
the  “ Girl  on  a Couch,”  and  that  “ Model 
Resting  ” which  represented,  and  did  justice 
to,  the  suave  “ line  ” of  an  approved  young 
beauty  of  the  day. 

A link  between  the  Early  Middle  and  the 
Late  Middle  period — its  actual  date,  if  I 
remember,  was  1879 — is  furnished  by  one  of 
only  two  or  three  largish,  yet  not  very 


24  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


large,  etchings  which  Whistler  ever  exe- 
cuted : and  that  is  the  “ Battersea  Bridge  ” 
— the  old  plank-bridge  then  already  doomed. 
It  is,  in  a fine  impression,  a masterpiece  of 
masterpieces,  and  attractive,  somehow,  to 
the  world.  That  plate  was  immediately 
succeeded  by  the  Venetian  prints,  of  which 
there  were  three  groups  : first,  the  twelve 
prints,  the  “ Venice  ” of  the  Fine  Art 
Society  ; pieces  which,  when  first  shown, 
were,  though  admirable  as  conceptions,  not 
really  in  their  perfect  condition  (and  hence, 
between  Whistler  and  his  critics,  reproaches 
and  “ these  tears  ”)  ; next,  the  “ Twenty- 
six  Etchings  ” of  the  Dowdeswells  (all  but 
five  of  which  were  of  Venetian  themes)  ; and 
last,  a few  very  little  seen  plates,  such  as  the 
broad  dry-point  “ Stables  ” (stables  for 
gondolas).  In  the  best  known  and  most 
favourite  plates  of  this  period  there  is 
sometimes — in  “ Little  Venice  ” particularly 
— a quite  magical  economy  of  means  : but 
also  there  is  sometimes  an  intricacy  the 
particular  subject  demanded  ; no  elabora- 
tion for  elaboration's  sake,  but  a tireless 
dwelling  on  beauties  that  multiply — that  are 
but  gradually  revealed — in  “ The  Garden  ” 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  25 


for  instance  : only  a little  walled  garden 
that  abuts  on  a Venetian  canal : it  is  an 
exquisite  vision  of  the  irrepressible  piercing 
of  the  life  of  the  Summer. 

In  the  latest  Period  of  all,  came,  amongst 
other  things,  a few  Dutch  subjects,  now 
rightly  much  in  request  by  the  collector. 
In  the  best  of  them — unless  it  may  be  in  the 
“ Zaandam,”  which  shares  the  marvellous 
economy  of  “ Little  Venice  ” — elaboration 
was  carried  far.  In  “ Pierrot,  Amsterdam/' 
there  is  every  constituent  of  a picture.  And 
it  is  on  the  principle  of  a painting,  surely, 
that  “ Nocturne  : Dance  House  ” is  done. 
Piece  by  piece,  almost,  the  effect  of  that 
plate  might  be  transferred  to  the  covered 
canvas — the  canvas  would  be  found  used 
fully  to  the  very  corners.  Seen  from  the  dark 
canal — Amsterdam  again,  this  time — lights 
quiver  in  the  windows  : quick  movement  is 
suggested.  Seen  from  the  shadowed  ways 
and  murky  waters,  the  Dance  House  throbs 
with  life.  Work  of  this  kind  seems  a 
development  of,  but  is  likewise  to  some  ex- 
tent a departure  from,  the  method  pursued 
in  those  of  the  Venetian  etchings  which  tend 
also  towards  elaboration.  Anyhow,  almost 


26  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


simultaneously  with  it,  Whistler,  with 
splendid  elasticity  of  mood,  and  never- 
failing  flexibility  of  hand,  was  minded  to 
execute  not  a few  plates  which  have  the 
small  scale  and  the  learned  slightness 
of  the  best  pieces  of  the  Jubilee  group  of 
three  or  four  years  earlier,  such  as  “ South- 
ampton Docks  ” and  “ Return  to  Tilbury.” 
“ Tour  St.  Antoine,  Loches,”  “ Market- 
Place,  Loches,”  and  in  Paris  the  vivacious 
vision  called  " Passages  de  T Opera  ” — the 
scene  is  really  on  the  Boulevard,  and  includes 
the  arched  entrance  to  the  Passages — are 
excellent  examples  of  the  power  of  taking 
rapidly,  or  at  least  taking  slightly  and 
suggestively,  picturesque  notes  of  faultless 
grace  and  unobtrusive  power.  The 
ignorant  person  thinks  such  work  would 
bear  extension,  at  many  points.  But  each 
part  in  reality  is  in  quite  perfect  relation  to 
the  other,  and,  to  work  so  planned  and 
executed,  addition  could  only  be  damage. 

With  those  few,  then,  who  have  tri- 
umphed brilliantly  in  many  fields — and 
whose  inspired  labour,  initiating,  experi- 
menting, pursued  with  assiduity,  has  never 
ceased  to  be  joy — Whistler  comes  to  be 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  27 


classed,  by  men  who  would  do  him  justice, 
and  who  perceive  the  measure  of  his  influ- 
ence, and  the  degree  of  his  own  personal 
advance  from  the  standpoints  reached 
before  him.  I have  read  that  his  imitators 
fail ; but  that  is  the  fate  of  imitators 
generally — the  influence  of  Whistler,  and 
the  appreciation  of  him  by  the  qualified,  is 
not  to  be  taken  stock  of  by  counting  who 
those  are  that  paint  most  obviously  in  his 
fashion,  and  declare  themselves  his  pupils. 
Further  much  than  these,  his  influence  has 
extended  ; and  with  most  of  the  best  in 
Modern  Art — with  the  impressions  of 
Constable,  with  late  Turner  water  colours, 
with  Alfred  Stevens’s  Genre-pictures,  with 
the  pregnant  memoranda  of  Keene,  with 
Orchardson’s  elegance,  Fantin’s  quiet  grace, 
Courbet’s  massiveness,  the  “ actuality  ” 
of  Manet  and  Degas — his  Art  will  be 
found  to  be  in  sympathy.  I could  try  to 
express  roughly,  in  a single  sentence,  the 
part  his  Etching  has  played — the  particular 
part  played  by  his  work  in  Colour,  ever  at 
least  harmonious,  and  charged  too,  as 
regards  his  figure  subjects,  with  his  own 
special  revelation  of  Character,  through  pose, 


28  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


instead  of  through  feature — the  part  his 
draughtsmanship  has  played  in  the  Litho- 
graph— but  it  would  be  forcing  the  note. 
And,  moreover,  something  of  this — unless  I 
have  failed  entirely — I have  already  made 
plain. 

A last  line  chronicles,  however,  the  fact 
that  more  to  Whistler  than  to  anyone  who 
has  worked  with  brush  or  needle  do  we  owe 
that  complete  acceptance  of  Modern  Life, 
of  the  modern  world,  of  all  that  is  miscalled 
its  ugliness,  of  its  aspects  of  every  day, 
which  complete  acceptance,  remember, 
whether  in  Pictorial  Art  or  the  Art  that  is 
Literature,  is  the  most  salient  characteristic 
of  the  best  workers  of  our  time.  Whistler, 
with  a nature  essentially  aristocratic — 
knowing  well,  in  the  depths  of  his  being, 
that  Art  of  any  kind  and  the  “ man 
in  the  street  ” have  nothing  in  common  : 
that  what  is  called  the  “ plain  man  ” and 
Art  are  for  ever  divided — yet  accepted 
the  very  things  that  seem  most  common- 
place to  commonplace  people,  and  showed 
us  their  interest.  So  great  an  artist — 
the  fantastic  beauty  of  Venice  and  the 
scaffolding  for  the  “ Savoy  ” appealed  to 


THE  PLACE  OF  WHISTLER  29 


him  together.  The  dome  of  the  Pantheon, 
the  Renaissance  towers  of  Loches,  a Cubitt- 
built  house  in  Pimlico,  the  Candle  Works 
over  the  River — they  were  all  his  material. 
Understanding  each,  with  each  he  knew 
how  to  deal.  And  that  is  one  of  the  reasons 
why  the  Portrait  of  his  Mother  will  go  a 
few  years  hence  in  safety  to  the  Louvre — 
why  “ San  Biagio,”  “ The  Garden,”  and 
“ The  Kitchen  ” lie  unabashed  for  ever 
by  the  side  of  the  noblest  Rembrandts — 
lie  by  the  “ Lutma  ” and  the  “ Clement  de 
Jonghe,”  lie  by  “ The  Landscape  with 
an  Obelisk  ” and  by  “ The  Goldweigher’s 
Field.” 


II 


VENETIAN  PAINTING 

Though  the  course  of  Venetian  Art,  from 
the  days  of  its  beginning  to  those  of  its 
greatest,  who  were  not  its  latest  masters, 
is  scarcely  a long  one,  it  is  long  enough  to 
allow  us  to  witness  the  transfer  of  a 
painter's  ideal  from  the  realm  of  Religious 
to  that  of  Secular  Painting.  Giovanni 
Bellini — as  many  of  his  pictures  make 
evident,  and  as  is  illustrated  in  possibly  the 
most  exquisite  of  forms  by  one  picture  in 
the  Church  of  the  Redentore — when  he 
painted  religious  themes,  painted  them  with 
scarcely  less  than  the  unction  of  a Fra 
Angelico,  or  the  refined  sweetness  of  a 
Perugino,  a Van  Dyck,  a Memling.  But 
by  the  time  that  Tintoret  was  splashing 
the  walls  of  a palace  with  luxurious 
colour  and  energetic  form — when  Titian, 
in  his  robust  old  age,  wTas  chronicling 

30 


VENETIAN  PAINTING 


31 


the  sumptuous  beauty  of  the  mistresses  of 
Princes,  and  Veronese  discovering  in  the 
record  of  a miracle  the  opportunity  for 
setting  forth  the  splendours  of  a more  than 
regal  feast — the  claims  of  the  spiritual  life, 
at  least,  were  felt  to  be  no  longer  dominant, 
and,  for  good  or  for  evil,  what  is  called 
“ the  Renaissance  ” was  fully  accomplished. 

An  Exhibition,  in  which  Venetian  Art 
is  seen  in  mass,  in  which  it  is  to  be  estimated 
in  the  gross  rather  than  by  the  single 
example,  is  the  best  occasion  that  can  be 
afforded  for  marking  this  transition — this 
modification,  at  the  least — of  feeling  and 
practice.  It  is  important,  at  the  same 
time,  not  to  exaggerate  the  fact  that 
it  suggests.  What  is  to  be  noted  in  this 
respect,  in  passing  from  a Cima  da 
Conegliano,  say,  to  a Titian  or  a Tintoret, 
is  not  that  the  one  believed  and  the  other 
disbelieved  in  the  reality  of  the  sacred 
subject  upon  which  he  happened  to  be 
engaged,  but  that  the  sacred  subject  got 
to  be  painted  with  a less  entire  devotedness, 
and,  yet  more,  with  the  employment  of 
every  device  of  luxury  and  external 
splendour.  Hence  the  Madonna  and  the 

4— ('31-1) 


32  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Holy  Child  yielded  to  the  presentation  of 
the  Marriage  at  Cana  and  of  Christ  in  the 
House  of  Levi.  The  true  Venetian's  choice 
was  in  some  measure  the  choice  of  Demas — 
“ having  loved  this  present  world  ” — but  it 
assumed  the  form  neither  of  crude  revolt 
nor  of  vulgar  denial — it  was  chiefly  that 
the  great  Venetian  was  impressed  so  over- 
poweringly  with  the  fact  of  carnal,  or  at 
all  events  material,  magnificence,  that  it 
came  naturally  to  him  (when  he  was  not 
concerned  with  Portraiture  or  Classic  Alle- 
gory) to  select  such  a Religious  Subject  as 
afforded  room  for  the  introduction  of  dis- 
tinguished architecture  and  seductive  flesh, 
for  a grouping  of  humanity  courtly  and 
visibly  refined,  and  for  a pose  of  stately  and 
robust  grace. 

Attention  may  be  directed  to  a com- 
position which  is,  so  to  put  it,  a summary 
of  Venetian  feeling  and  Venetian  aim  : that 
masterpiece  of  Veronese,  “Christ  in  the 
House  of  Levi,"  to  which  allusion  has 
already  been  made.  It  was  accurately 
enough  described,  in  the  London  Exhibition 
in  which  it  appeared,  as  a “ replica  with 
variations  ” — on  a smaller  scale,  for 


VENETIAN  PAINTING 


33 


instance,  and  with  features  not  existing  in 
the  other  work — of  a great  picture  which  is 
one  of  the  glories  of  the  Accademia  at 
Venice,  and  which  is  in  some  sense  a com- 
panion to  the  “ Marriage  at  Cana  ''  of  the 
Louvre.  Nothing  could  be  more  perfect  in 
accomplishment ; and,  of  the  given  theme, 
there  could  scarcely,  I suppose,  be  a more 
dignified  conception  or  a more  adequate 
exposition.  The  humble  festival  about 
which  Martha  was  so  anxious  in  the  house 
of  Lazarus  would  hardly  have  tempted 
Veronese's  brush.  He  would  be  attracted 
only  by  a vision  of  those  houses  where 
Christ  was  grandly  entertained.  Levi's  or 
Matthew's — he  was  a sort  of  “ Receiver- 
General  " — like  Simon  the  Leper's,  was 
presumably  such. 

So  Veronese  has  represented  it — the  feast 
spread  out  of  doors,  under  an  arcade 
that  does  not  roof  out  and  exclude  a 
Venetian  sky  ; a long,  narrow  table,  with 
Christ  in  the  centre  of  it ; a terrace- 
like foreground,  peopled  with  Venetian 
senators  and  a Venetian  populace ; and 
all  this  expressed  with  an  art  that  never 
ceases  to  be  dignified  and  decorative,  even 


34  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


when  it  records  the  detail  of  a gesture  or  is 
occupied  with  the  realisation  of  the  texture 
of  a garment  or  the  crimson  of  a baldachino 
lifted  above  some  chair  of  State.  The  story 
is  believed  in  ; it  is  told,  and  told  lucidly 
and  sincerely  ; but  for  Veronese  it  could 
hardly  have  found  embodiment  unsup- 
ported by  the  material  glories  which 
fascinated  him  so  much — by  the  splendour 
of  the  Venetian  presence  and  the  radiance 
of  the  Adriatic  light. 


Ill 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 

I 

The  two  most  considerable  painters  of 
whom,  within  the  last  few  years,  Death 
has  deprived  France,  have  been — if  we 
put  aside  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  with  his 
noble  and  tranquil  vision  of  the  elder 
world — Eugene  Boudin  and  Henri  Fantin- 
Latour.  Practically  they  were  contempo- 
raries. Boudin  was  born  in  1824  ; Fantin 
in  1837.  Boudin  died  in  1898  ; Fantin  in 
1904.  And  each,  although,  or  perhaps 
because,  their  themes  and  their  achieve- 
ments were  so  different,  esteemed  the  other 
and  the  other’s  work.  “ Tons  mes  compli- 
ments. Enfin  ! ” wrote  Fantin  to  Boudin, 
when,  in  1883,  the  “ painter  of  the  Channel  ” 
was  at  length  “ medalled.”  And,  in  the 
Spring  of  1904,  in  Paris,  when,  in  an  hour’s 
talk,  that  I hoped  then  might  often  be 

35 


36  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


repeated,  Fantin  spoke  to  me  of  Boudin,  it 
was  of  his  modesty,  as  well,  of  course,  as 
of  his  merit . There  is  nothing  inappropriate 
in  studying  for  a while  these  artists 
together. 

II 

One  side  of  Fantin’s  art — his  exquisite 
Flower  Painting — we,  in  England,  were  the 
first  to  appreciate.  Let  us  boast  where  we 
may.  The  best  of  the  Criticism  of  thirty 
years  ago  discerned  and  did  justice  to  the 
charm  of  those  astonishing,  so  brilliant, 
and  yet  so  placid  canvases,  on  which,  in 
very  truth,  the  rose  blossoms  and  the  zinnia 
has  lasting  life.  Most  of  the  finest  Flower- 
pieces  Fantin  was  ever  to  paint  had  already 
then  been  painted.  From  1865  to  1875 — 
or  the  end  of  the  'Seventies  it  may  be — is 
the  great  time  for  his  Flowers.  It  was  the 
best  of  them  that  English  Criticism  had 
then  the  chance,  and  did  not  then  neglect 
the  chance,  of  appreciating.  But  in 
England  Fantin's  reputation  was  helped  not 
only  by  Criticism.  The  interesting  etcher, 
Edwin  Edwards,  and  his  wife — greatly 
repandus  in  the  artistic  world  of  that  time — 
alert,  enthusiastic,  as  well  as  influential — 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


37 


were,  one  or  other  of  them,  during  long 
years — first  one  and  then  the  other,  to  be 
absolutely  accurate — of  infinite  service  to 
his  name.  One  or  two  of  the  dealers,  too, 
“ pushed  him  ” with  intelligence  ; and  in 
England,  as  a Flower  painter,  Fantin’s 
place  has  long  been  secure. 

But  there  are  other  sides  of  his  art 
which  the  Public  here  has  not  had  equal 
opportunities  of  understanding.  Not  that 
opportunities  have  been  wanting  alto- 
gether. Comparatively  lately,  Mr.  Richard 
Gutekunst  and  Mr.  van  Wisselingh 
have  made  brave  shows  of  Fantin’s 
Lithographs ; and  in  his  Lithographs 
only  once  has  Fantin  treated  a Flower 
subject.  It  is  a rare  piece,  and  an 
interesting  piece,  but  not  a wholly  satis- 
factory one — a large  lithograph  of  Roses. 
I take  it  Fantin  promptly  recognised  that 
Lithography  was  not  the  medium  for  Flowers, 
and  that  on  that  account  the  experiment — 
quite  as  successful  as  it  could  hope  to  be — 
was  never  repeated. 

Fantin’s  other  lithographs,  the  mass 
of  his  lithographs — most  of  them  admir- 
able altogether — deal  exclusively  with  the 


38  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Figure.  The  figure  draped,  or  the  figure 
nude  ; the  figure  of  the  little  bourgeoises 
the  figure  of  Eve,  the  figure  as  it  was 
suggested  to  Fantin  by  the  musical  ro- 
mances of  Wagner  or  Berlioz  ; but  in  any 
case  the  Figure.  These  things,  then,  have 
been  seen  lately — I may  say  more  of  them 
by-and-bye — but,  speaking  broadly,  looking 
back  over  what  is  now  a generation,  allow- 
ing for  certain  exceptions,  opportunities 
have  been  wanting,  here  in  England,  of 
seeing  anything  but  the  Flower  pictures. 
Sometimes,  indeed — but  it  has  been  very 
seldom,  and  chiefly  in  quite  minor  examples 
— we  have  seen  in  England  the  Portraiture  ; 
and  the  Portraiture,  like  the  Ideal  Subjects 
in  Painting  and  in  Lithography,  is  a side 
of  Fantin’s  art  that  it  behoves  us  to  know. 

But  before  we  glance  at  that,  and  at  his 
treatment  of  the  Figure,  whether  in  Paint- 
ing or  Lithography,  and  before  we  try  to 
assign  to  him  his  place  in  the  Art  by  which 
this  country  best  knows  him,  let  us  think 
of  the  man  himself — a man  of  the  South, 
who  had  little  of  Southern  temperament  ; 
a man  typically  French,  withal ; yet  the 
exponent  of  that  side  of  French  character 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


39 


which  finds  itself  content — in  a life  recueilli , 
in  a life  enferme  almost,  and  at  the  most 
uneventful — with  a more  than  English 
domesticity.  Give  him  his  brushes  at  least ; 
give  him  his  wife,  his  sister ; Music ; 
Books  that  he  may  be  read  to — and  a 
very  passion  of  domesticity  was  Fantin’s. 
“ Je  vais  nul  part”  he  said  to  me, 
in  the  last  April  of  his  life,  excusing 
himself  apropos  of  what  I learnt  had 
been  Whistler’s  mild  reproaches  to  him, 
in  that  he  had  failed  to  pay  a visit  to  that 
illustrious  settler.  In  the  Rue  des  Saints 
Peres  once,  and  then  again  in  the  Rue  du 
Bac,  lived  some  time  the  genius  of  Etching. 
Fantin  lived  in  a quarter  that  at  least 
abutted  upon  that  one — he  lived  in  the  Rue 
des  Beaux  Arts.  But  the  distance  was 
great  for  a visit.  Fantin,  I believe,  had 
made  a bonne  promenade  if  he  had  taken  the 
air  a little  on  that  light  Bridge  that  spans 
the  Seine  hard  by — the  windy  Pont  des 
Arts. 

I said  to  M.  Durand- Ruel,  quite  lately 
— to  the  hale  veteran  who  must  have 
known  him  from  youth — that  Fantin  had 
not  looked  his  age,  and  had  not  in  any  way 


40  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


seemed  it.  “ II  sortait  peu”  said  M. 
Durand-Ruel,  significantly,  in  full  explana- 
tion of  a death  every  lover  of  Fine  Art 
must  mourn ; and  I recalled  a greyness  in 
the  visage  not  quite  in  accord  with  the 
vivacity  of  the  clear  and  light-blue  eye. 
“ II  sortait  peu  ” — and  everything  had  been 
said.  It  reminded  me  of  another  and  more 
active  vice  of  Age,  that  the  excellent  Henry 
Vaughan — himself  then  all  but  ninety 
years  old — signalled  to  me  as  in  his  opinion 
the  most  certain  precursor  of  Death.  “ He 
has  taken  to  driving  in  a brougham,”  Henry 
Vaughan  remarked,  of  a common  acquaint- 
ance. “ He  has  taken  to  driving  in  a 
brougham.”  The  end  was  near. 

But  it  is  of  Fantin's  life,  and  his  work 
in  it — not  of  his  death,  nor  of  the  likelihood 
of  its  approach — that  I am  writing  ; and — 
a last  word  upon  the  gloomier  matter — 
Death  was  at  least  averted  for  awhile,  there 
is  no  doubt,  by  the  delightful  painter's  long 
Summer  sojourning  at  Bure  in  the  Eure. 
There,  in  his  own  corner  of  pastoral  France 
— his  corner  by  adoption,  I mean — in  the 
direction  of  La  Beauce,  which  is  France's 
granary,  Fantin  had  the  air  about  him, 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


41 


the  quiet  air  of  the  belle  saison,  and,  within 
his  sight,  roses  and  dahlias — zinnias,  too, 
in  the  September  days. 

Fantin’s  birthplace  was  Stendhal’s  birth- 
place— Grenoble.  His  father  was  a painter, 
and  gave  the  boy  his  first  lessons.  But 
when  to  Paris  came  Fantin,  in  what  was 
only  just  young  manhood,  it  was  in  the 
studio  of  Lecoq  de  Boisbaudran  that  he 
received  what  people  speak  of  as  “ train- 
ing.” Training,  of  course,  has  never  made 
a Master.  It  has  opened,  however,  some 
possibilities  of  mastery  ; and  that  Paris 
studio,  in  1857,  brought  the  painter  into 
connection  not  only  with  men  whose  names 
are  to-day  forgotten,  but  with  people  of 
genius,  who  have  survived.  Of  these,  the 
two  most  conspicuous  are  Whistler,  named 
already,  and  Alphonse  Legros — in  other 
words,  the  sybarite  of  Art  and  Art’s  most 
typical  ascetic.  And  with  both,  because 
of  real  intellectual  range,  Fantin  had 
sympathy.  All  three  are,  in  one’s  senti- 
ment and  thought,  curiously  bound 
together,  not  only  by  a possession  of  quali- 
ties sterling,  austere,  and  delicate  (and 
austerity  in  Art  could  be  Whistler’s  as  much 


42  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


as  it  could  be  any  other's),  but  likewise 
because  one  feels  of  them,  especially,  that 
fashionable  or  unfashionable,  liked  or  not 
liked,  it  is  in  the  very  air,  somehow,  that 
they  outlast  our  day.  Fantin  outlasts  our 
day,  not  less  than  either  of  his  comrades. 
In  1859  he  was  refused  in  Paris,  as  Whistler 
very  soon  was  refused,  or  ignored,  in 
London. 

The  austerity  of  Fantin  was  shown  in 
nothing  more  than  in  his  Portraiture.  He 
painted  intellect  and  he  painted  tempera- 
ment ; he  painted  Age  and  Youth  ; but 
the  Age  must  have  taken  on  nothing  of 
artificial — the  Youth  must  have  nothing  of 
self-assertiveness  ; not  much  even  of 
expansiveness,  nothing  of  smartness — it  is 
the  youth  of  the  refined  Bourgeoisie , 
restricted  and  content,  that  knows  not 
the  manners  of  the  Quartier  du  Parc 
Monceau,  nor  the  manners  of  the  great 
old  Faubourg.  So  it  is  that  his  men 
of  brains — and  the  men  he  paints  are  men 
of  talent,  with  hardly  an  exception — are 
painted,  not  showing  themselves  to  the 
world,  but  at  ease  with  comrades,  or,  in 
their  pursuits,  quietly  busy.  So  it  is 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


43 


that  his  young  women — his  Brodeuses  and 
Liseuses — have  nothing  of  Sargent  or 
Helleu.  Their  nerves  possess  stability ; 
and  they  do  not  represent  in  the  least  the 
elegance  of  the  Capital,  or  the  mode  of  the 
moment.  In  painting  them,  if  Fantin 
thought  of  the  traditions  of  any  predecessor, 
it  must  have  been  of  the  best  traditions  of 
Metsu  and  Terburg,  and  the  best  traditions 
of  Chardin. 

To  turn  again  to  Fantin’s  pictures  of  men, 
two  of  the  most  famous  of  his  portrait 
groups  are  “ Un  Atelier  aux  Batignolles  " 
and  “ Hommage  a Delacroix.' ’ In  the  first, 
Fantin  recorded,  with  the  quiet  harmony 
that  is  most  characteristic  of  him — for  he  is 
colourist  essentially,  as  well  as  harmonist, 
only,  I think,  in  his  Flower-pieces — the  men 
(half  of  them  destined  to  be  famous  before 
his  life  closed)  with  whom  his  life  almost 
began.  There,  in  the  “ Atelier  of  the 
Batignolles,"  were  Zola  and  Edouard  Manet. 
Other  people — some  of  them  perhaps 
famous  already — were,  later,  dragged  into 
the  " Hommage  a Delacroix."  Why  do  I 
write  “ dragged " ? Because  I recollect 
that  on  my  saying  to  Fantin  there  seemed 


44  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


no  special  reason  why  these  should  all  do 
homage  at  that  particular  shrine,  he 
smilingly  allowed  that  half  of  them  were 
there  not  at  all  because  they  wished  to  be. 
Be  it  his  to  assume  their  acquiescence,  and 
to  lead  their  worship  in  the  direction  in 
which  just  then  he  thought  it  fitting  that 
it  should  go. 

It  is  in  the  Allegorical  figures,  the  draped 
figures  of  Romantic  Music,  in  the  Classical 
nudities,  above  all — amongst  which  I count 
perforce  the  firm  and  silvery  figure  of 
“ Eve  ” in  the  lithograph — that  the 
correctness — the  warm  correctness — of 
Fantin’s  draughtsmanship,  still  more,  the 
suavity  and  splendour  of  his  design — becomes 
most  of  all  apparent.  I have  used  the  word 
“ austere  ” of  him  ; but  there  is  no  austerity 
whatever  about  his  representation — his 
habitual  representation — of  the  female 
figure.  Here,  with  Legros,  he  has  scarcely 
anything  in  common.  In  his  drawing  of  the 
female  Nude,  he  is  of  the  tradition  of 
Venice,  modified  by  the  tradition  of  Parma 
and  the  simpler  £ grace  of  Prud’hon. 
As  far  as  Painting  is  concerned,  I like  these 
subjects  best  in  the  earlier  years  of  his 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


45 


treatment  of  them.  It  is  then  that  their 
colour  is  finest — nothing  blurred,  nothing 
modified  unduly — and  the  very  touch  of  the 
brush  is  then  more  interesting.  As  far  as 
the  Lithographs  are  concerned,  Time 
changed  him  hardly  at  all — if  it  did  change 
him  at  all,  it  was  for  the  better.  Pace  the 
French  feeling  of  the  moment,  which 
inclines,  even  more  strongly,  to  other  things, 
Fantin’s  greatest  achievement  was  his 
painting  of  Flowers.  He  is,  par  excellence , 
the  Flower-painter  in  Oils,  as  Francis  James 
is  the  Flower-painter  in  Water  Colour. 
But  next,  I suppose,  comes  the  perfection  of 
draughtsmanship,  design,  and  craftsman's 
technical  skill,  in  the  production  of  the  Litho- 
graphs. Whistler's,  Legros's,  Shannon's, 
Belleroche's  Lithographs  are  the  only  ones 
that  can  endure  at  all — at  least  in  any 
number — to  be  set  by  Fantin's.  That  one 
fact  let  us  note — it  must  by  no  means 
escape  us — ere  we  say  one  word  more  of 
the  thing  that,  above  all  others,  was  final 
and  consummate — the  Flower  Painting. 

Rightly,  of  late  years,  Fantin  hardly 
touched  Flower  Painting.  He  had  done, 
in  his  great  period— in  the 'Seventies,  chiefly. 


46  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


but  not  exclusively,  as  has  been  said  already 
— those  things  in  Flower  Painting  by  which 
he  is  most  certain  to  live.  In  a sense,  his 
Flower  Painting  is  itself  Portraiture — that 
is,  the  individuality  of  the  particular  bloom 
is  in  no  way  passed  over.  Fantin — like 
Francis  James — arrests  for  us  its  soul, 
where  Van  Huy  sum  and  Van  Aelst — great 
in  verisimilitude  and  great  in  symmetry — 
arrest  for  us  mainly  its  magnificence  and 
its  material  life.  With  Fantin,  there  is  the 
sentiment  as  well  as  the  fact — the  intimate 
pleasure  not  only  in  the  thing’s  splendour, 
but  in  the  thing’s  existence.  Van  Huysum’s 
flowers  were  for  the  taste,  ordered  and  arti- 
ficial, of  the  Eighteenth  Century — its  earlier 
half.  Fantin’s  were  for  the  taste  of  the 
poet  of  the  “ Lesser  Celandine,”  and  of  the 
“ primrose  by  the  river’s  brim.” 

A background  wholly  lacking  in  incident 
or  line — without  even  variety  of  light  and 
shade,  for  the  most  part — but  a background 
always  carefully  and  subtly  in  harmony  with 
the  flowers  themselves,  is  his  flowers’  only 
decor.  So  much  have  they  that  accuracy 
of  draughtsmanship  which  is  la  probite  de 
V art,  that  less  of  subtlety  in  the  background 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


47 


— less  of  subtlety,  too,  sheer  subtlety,  in 
the  rendering  of  the  main  theme — and  the 
things  might  be  botanical  studies.  Yet 
they  are  that,  in  fact,  not  more  at  all  than 
the  splendid  impromptus  of  Diaz  or  the 
revelries  of  Vollon.  No,  no,  it  is  not  a mere 
Realist ; it  is  an  Idealist  who  has  painted 
them.  They  have  been  not  only  a con- 
scientious student's  adequate  material. 
Dahlias  and  roses  ; zinnias  ; roses  ; then 
roses  and  white  heather  ; stocks,  and  roses 
— it  is  their  lover  who  has  painted  them. 
Fantin  has  understood  and  valued  the 
fragile  life  that  only  his  love  could  prolong. 

Ill 

Really,  Eugene  Boudin  must  have  had  a 
wonderful  constitution.  Nothing  jerry- 
built  about  him.  Like  “ Sarah  ” — once 
supposed  to  have  no  staying  power — he 
was  made,  truly,  of  steel.  The  penury  of 
his  earlier  years — of  manhood,  I mean — 
the  immense  struggle  of  all  his  middle  life — 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  shortened 
visibly  his  days.  He  survived  those  evil 
times.  He  died  at  seventy-four. 

All  that  accounts  for  his  large  and  various 

5— (2314) 


48  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


productiveness  ; it  accounts  for  the  fact 
that  some  of  his  work,  and  some  that  is  not 
the  least  excellent,  must  be  referred  to  a 
period  only  old  men  can  remember — the 
period  of  the  early  'Sixties — and  for  the 
fact,  too,  that  some  of  his  work  belongs  to 
a time  which  even  young  men  allow  to  be 
recent.  Boudin  painted  at  Antibes  and 
at  Beaulieu  in  the  Winter  of  1896.  Nor  did 
he  fail  to  change  in  accordance  with  the 
years  : the  impulse,  a natural  one,  coming 
from  within,  and  never  from  without.  So  it 
was,  and  under  those  conditions  only,  that 
he  was  “ dans  le  mouvement  ” entirely — 
even  “ du  dernier  bateau ,”  one  would  say. 
And  Boudin  is  now  on  his  way  to  be  a 
Classic  ; yet  were  it  not  for  a quite  recent 
Exhibition,  preceded  by  some  humble 
writings  of  my  own,  there  would  even  now 
be  but  about  a score  of  people  in  England  to 
whom  his  name  could  be  said  to  be  familiar. 

Since,  from  seeing  one  striking  oil  sketch 
of  his,  in  M.  Jacobi's  window,  then  in 
the  Rue  Bourdaloue,  over  against  the 
portico  of  Notre-Dame  de  Lorette — since, 
from  seeing  that  sketch  of  towering  sails, 
golden  and  grey,  in  a placid  harbour,  I 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


49 


began  to  take  serious  interest  in  Eugene 
Boudin,  I have  often  asked  myself  why 
we  have  known  him  so  little.  Certainly 
an  English  dealer  here  and  there  has  had 
his  work,  and  has  presumably  sold  it ; but 
with  us  it  has  never,  until  lately,  been  con- 
centrated, seen  in  any  quantity,  or  made  a 
theme  of  Criticism  ; and  it  has  sometimes 
seemed,  amongst  us,  neither  quite  enter- 
tainingly new  nor  quite  ^respectably  old. 
It  is  of  the  generation  that  followed  that  of 
the  Romantics  ; and  the  Romantics,  the 
“ men  of  1830  ” — Corot  and  Rousseau, 
Diaz  and  Dupre — held  the  field,  and  Boudin, 
whom  the  last  of  the  Romantics  admired, 
has  stood  alone. 

Again,  though  Boudin's  work  has  great 
and  various  virtues,  though  it  is  sterling 
entirely,  and  so  spontaneous  that  one  never 
wearies  of  it,  it  has  no  peculiarity.  Boudin 
does  not  break  suddenly  and  visibly  away, 
as  Corot  does,  at  a particular  moment,  from 
the  recognised  road — painting  never  the 
forms  of  things,  but  only  their  suggestive- 
ness ; painting  a few  things  ; painting  these 
with  reiteration — the  dreamy,  undulating 
land,  the  silver  of  the  morning,  the  mist  of 


50  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


twilight.  That  is  Corot's  way.  And  one 
of  the  reasons  why  he  has  impressed — 
though  he  was  late  in  impressing — the  big 
Public,  is  that  pertinaciously  and  not  as  I 
suppose  with  any  inward  satiety  he  went 
on  doing  practically  one  thing — I mean 
that  it  is  one  order  of  sentiment  that 
dominates  in  Corot,  that  makes  itself  felt, 
that  by  mere  repetition  gets  itself  accepted. 
Such  work,  by  its  mass  and  similarity, 
maintaining  all  the  time  a high  though  very 
far  from  an  unbroken  level,  ends  by  impos- 
ing on  the  Public  no  obligation  of  alertness, 
no  exertion,  no  need  to  meet  the  painter 
half  way.  You  know  a Corot,  or  an  imita- 
tion of  Corot,  as  you  know  the  palm  of  your 
hand  ; and  the  Public  loves  that  facility  ; 
and  Boudin,  with  his  variety,  with  the  end- 
lessness of  the  impressions  he  records,  offers 
it  no  pleasure  so  idle  and  so  ready  to  hand. 
More  or  less  you  must  know  his  work — 
more  or  less,  too,  you  must  have  studied  his 
themes— to  understand  his  individuality. 
He  is  a virtuoso , but  much  more  than  a 
virtuoso — he  appeals  to  the  most  tasteful  of 
judges.  Baudelaire — sanest  of  critics,  if 
least  wholesome  of  poets — forty  years  ago, 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


51 


jumps  to  the  recognition  of  him.  Corot 
acclaims  him  “ le  roi  des  dels ” Courbet 
declares  “ II  riy  a que  vous  qui  connaissez 
le  del.”  And  much  of  the  best  modern 
Criticism  of  France  echoes  in  effect  that 
eulogy. 

A word  about  his  circumstances  and  his 
life,  before  I try  to  analyse  with  some  degree 
of  detail  his  achievement,  and  speak  of  the 
mediums  as  well  as  of  the  themes  in  which 
Boudin’s  art  is  expressed. 

Eugene  Boudin  was  the  son  of  a sailor  : 
the  sea  was  in  his  blood.  Born  at  Honfleur, 
the  quaint  and  interesting,  but  now 
somewhat  decaying  port,  on  the  western 
side  of  the  estuary  of  the  Seine — the 
port  whose  ancient  picturesqueness  Isabey 
romantically  chronicled,  in  a picture  whose 
effect  is  preserved  for  us  through  the 
impressive  mezzotint  of  Lucas — he  was 
himself,  like  more  than  one  of  the  sea  novel- 
ists, his  true  brethren,  a while  “ before  the 
mast.”  His  father  was  at  that  time  pilot 
on  board  the  humble  packet  that  daily 
crossed,  in  serene  Summer  and  stormy 
Autumn,  the  breadth  of  Channel  water  that 
divides  Honfleur  from  Le  Havre.  Eugene, 


52  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


in  his  boyhood,  had  wider  experiences. 
Once,  at  least,  his  ship  dropped  anchor  in 
an  English  port ; and  M.  Gustave  Cahen's 
authoritative,  though  rather  scanty,  Life 
of  him  records  that  he  was  once  at  the 
Antilles.  These  early  voyages  gave  him 
impressions,  gave  him  actual  knowledge, 
gave  him  insight.  I do  not  minimise  their 
importance.  All  his  youthful  ways  did 
something  to  equip  him  for  the  business  of 
his  life.  But  the  vitality  of  his  work,  during 
long  years,  is  due,  of  course,  not  only  and 
not  mainly  to  those  first  experiences  with 
which  so  many  painters  are  wont  to  be 
content — its  sustained  excellence  is  due  to 
Boudin's  habit  of  daily  and  of  hourly  con- 
tact with  the  scenes  that  gave  him  occasion 
for  those  subjects  on  which  his  choice 
instinctively  fell. 

Before  old  age  came  on  him,  Boudin's 
father  retired  from  the  sea.  He  settled 
then  at  Le  Havre — established  himself  there 
as  a small  stationer  and  frame-maker — 
kept  Eugene  Boudin  with  him  as  an 
assistant,  and  the  instinct  for  drawing 
showed  itself  in  Eugene  as  a youth. 
“ Chance,”  says  M.  Cahen — to  whose  book 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


53 


as  well  as  to  some  talk  with  Boudin's 
brother,  M.  Louis  Boudin,  I am  indebted 
for  detailsjof  Boudin’s  early  days — “ chance 
brought  into  the  shop  the  painter  Troyon, 
who  gave  him  some  pastels  to  be  stretched 
and  framed.”  The  sight  of  them  was 
a stimulus.  Young  Boudin  did  a land- 
scape which  came  under  the  notice  of 
Millet — Millet,  poor  but  a Master.  His 
heart  was  set  already  upon  being  an 
artist  : nothing  else.  Millet  reasoned 

with  him  to  no  purpose — reasoned  from  his 
own  bitter  experience — but  helped  him, 
gave  him  his  first  lesson,  as  well.  The 
shop,  thenceforth,  was  as  a closed  book  to 
him.  Troyon,  Isabey,  and  Couture,  recog- 
nising the  young  man’s  talent, % busied 
themselves  with  getting  the  town  of  his 
adoption  to  grant  him  for  a few  years  an 
allowance.  The  object  was,  that  he  should 
have  leisure  to  study.  And,  towards  1850, 
a three  years’  pension  from  the  municipality 
of  Le  Havre  was  forthcoming ; and  to 
Paris,  to  study,  and  observe,  went  Eugene 
Boudin. 

Not,  however,  as  it  seemed  at  first,  and 
seemed  even  for  some  time  afterwards, 


54  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


very  usefully.  He  was  confused  in 
his  course.  Rousseau  “ solicited  ” him 
this  way- — the  word  is  Boudin’s  own — 
Corot  “ solicited  ” him  in  that.  And,  at 
a bad  moment  for  Portraiture  to  succeed — 
for,  amongst  people  who  could  afford  but 
little,  the  daguerreotype  was  then  found 
fascinating  and  sufficient — he  made  the 
mistake  of  taking  to  Portraiture.  Nobody 
wanted  his  portraits.  The  time  for  the 
pension  expired.  “ The  town  of  Havre 
owed  me  nothing,”  says  Boudin  ; and,  “ It 
had  been  deceived.” 

Then  began  the  really  difficult  days  that 
must  have  seemed  to  be  endless  ones.  In 
spite  of  occasional  recognition  of  a success 
that  was  personal,  they  lasted  more  or  less 
till  the  beginning  of  his  old  age — till  within 
ten  years  of  his  death.  Then  only  was  his 
income  a good  one  ; in  the  years  of  what  is 
now  accounted  his  best  labour,  his  earnings, 
not  always  actually  insignificant — and  his 
ways  were  humble  ways — were  at  least 
strangely  uncertain.  In  several  years  that 
followed  pretty  closely  upon  those  in  which 
Le  Havre  had  pensioned  him,  Boudin  must 
have  starved  if  he  had  not  been  useful  to 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


55 


Troyon.  Many  a Troyon  background — the 
sky,  or  more  than  the  sky — owes  something 
of  its  life  to  Boudin.  Troyon  had  a name 
and  was  busy,  and  Boudin  helped  him 
effectively,  where  he  needed  help  the  most. 
But,  by  that  time,  Boudin’s  work,  wrought 
on  his  own  panels,  was  his  own  entirely,  in 
character.  He  had  learnt  his  lessons.  He 
had  taken  his  road.  But  the  Public  would 
not  receive  him.  “ La  Peintare  grise  n'etait 
guere  goutee  a ce  moment-la  ,”  he  says : 
“ surtout  pour  la  marine .”  And  it  was  the 
grey  of  the  Channel  waters,  and  the  grey  of 
the  Channel  skies,  that  Boudin  had  found, 
by  this  time,  it  was  his  business  to  set  down. 
How  wide,  really,  was  his  range,  how  un- 
remitting his  originality  and  freshness,  in 
that  which,  looked  at  superficially,  may 
seem  to  be  limited,  I shall  insist  on — I shall 
try  to  show — a little  later,  when  I have 
done  with  the  brief  story  of  Boudin’s 
outward  life. 

In  one  of  the  years  that  followed  not  long 
after  the  ending  of  the  pension,  Boudin 
went  to  Brittany.  He  returned  there  later  ; 
but  it  must  have  been  in  the  first  of  his  long 
sojourns  in  a land  that  lies  beyond  the 


56  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


boundaries  of  the  veritable  France,  that  he 
met  the  Breton  girl  whom,  in  1858,  he 
married — using  her  that  very  year  as  his 
principal  model  for  what  seemed  then  an 
“ important  ” but  must  be  looked  at  now 
as  on  the  whole  an  unsatisfactory  picture, 
the  “ Pardon  de  Sainte  Anne  la  Palud, 
Finisterre.,,  The  town  of  Havre,  not  even 
then  quite  weary  of  well-doing  so  far  as  he 
was  concerned,  bought  the  canvas.  It 
hangs  in  the  Museum.  In  after  years 
Boudin  was  ashamed  of  it — wished  it  had 
never  been  painted  ; wished  it  had  been 
destroyed — in  its  hard  and  laboured  finish 
it  misrepresented  the  artist  he  had  become. 
But,  at  the  time,  no  doubt  the  purchase 
pleased  him.  Like  his  wife's  modest  dowry 
— destined  certainly  to  be  spent — it  helped 
to  keep  the  couple  going  for  a while.  It 
was  in  somewhat  later  days  than  these, 
and  when  he  was  himself  more  truly,  that 
his  straits  were  the  greatest.  The  develop- 
ment of  his  genius  came  then  apace,  and  on 
the  part  of  the  Public  there  was  no  response. 
Yet  at  this  time,  more  distinctly  than 
in  the  beginning,  a few  artistic  men 
believed  in  him. 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


57 


Frequent  then  was  his  practice  of  Pastel ; 
and  it  was  when  he  was  settled  in  humble 
fashion  at  Honfleur,  or  on  the  hillside  above 
it,  in  1859 — when  the  character  of  the  Pastel 
work,  done  for  his  own  sake  entirely,  was 
in  advance  of  that  of  the  Painting,  done  in 
part  for  the  rare  buyer — that  Baudelaire 
was  smitten  with  the  charm  of  these  im- 
promptus, with  their  suggestiveness,  so 
free  and  so  potent  that  for  the  seeing  eye 
it  is  a realisation,  absolutely.  And  why 
may  I not  quote  here,  instead  of  later,  those 
phrases  of  Baudelaire's  which  have  almost 
the  colour,  almost  the  vivacity,  almost  the 
depth,  of  the  intense  and  personal  visions — 
those  pastels  they  describe  ? He  is  speak- 
ing of  skies.  “ Tenebres  chaotiques , im- 
mensites  vertes  et  roses  . . . ces  fournaises 
beantes , ces  firmaments  de  satin  noir  on 
violet  ...  ces  horizons  en  deuil , on  rnisse- 
lant  de  metal  fondu  ; toutes  ces  profondeurs, 
toates  ces  splendeursy  me  monterent  au 
cerveau.i} 

Two  painters  with  whom,  in  years  still 
relatively  early,  Boudin  became  associated, 
must  be  named  here.  To  mention  them — 
Jongkind  and  Claude  Monet — is  to  show  in 


58  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


part  Boudin's  derivation,  and  to  show  in 
part  his  influence.  Jongkind — a Dutch- 
man, chiefly  of  French  practice — was 
Isabey’s  pupil ; but  his  originality  was  such 
that  he  departed  wholly  and  at  once  from 
Isabey’s  often  theatrical  manner.  The 
marines  of  Isabey — save  at  his  very  best — 
have  something  that  is  artificial,  too 
obviously.  The  marines  of  Jongkind  are 
scenes  observed  with  closeness,  and  sug- 
gested with  power.  Whether  in  Painting 
or  in  Etching,  Jongkind’s  touch  has  know- 
ledge, economy,  strength.  Boudin,  up 
to  a certain  point,  was  influenced  by  him  ; 
though  he  had  qualities — the  quality  of 
colourist  was  one  of  them — Jongkind  never 
possessed.  He  became  a little  hopeful  as 
to  his  own  Future — as  to  the  eventual 
acceptance  of  his  work — when,  as  he  says, 
he  saw  the  Public  disposed  at  last  to 
swallow  “ that  fruit  of  Jongkind’s,  of  which 
the  rind  was  certainly  hard."  Jongkind, 
by  learned  vividness,  by  learned  omission — 
an  art  of  omission  sometimes  even  over- 
done— set  the  way  to  Impressionism.  And 
Boudin,  looked  at  in  one  light  at  least, 
appears  a link  between  the  orthodox  of  the 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


59 


earlier  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  and 
the  Impressionist  of  the  latter  half — he  was 
the  master  of  Claude  Monet — and  it  is  the 
Impressionists  and  those  who  understand 
Impressionists — it  is,  at  all  events,  the 
Moderns — who  comprehend  best,  and  value 
most,  the  work  of  Boudin.  For  Monet, 
Boudin  was  a fascination  from  the  first ; 
and  M.  Hugues  le  Roux  prettily  chronicles 
the  meeting  of  the  man  and  the  boy. 
“ Aimes-tu  la  peinture  ? Regardes ” says 
Boudin.  And  the  chronicler  explains  : 
“ They  were  in  a light  key  ” — for  the  period, 
revolutionary — all  those  landscapes  of  the 
port  and  of  the  Lower  Seine.  “ Cest  ires 
beau.”  And  they  were  friends  immediately. 
And  master  and  pupil  marched  off  together 
— “ s’asseoir  dans  le  grand  vent  des  plateaux” 
A few  years  later,  Claude  Monet — already 
in  Paris  or  its  neighbourhood — laboriously 
urged  Boudin  to  establish  himself  in  the 
capital.  But  means  were  lacking,  and 
perhaps,  too,  the  desire.  Afterwards  Boudin 
wrote,  not  altogether  regretfully — not  with 
much  self-reproach  ; for  he  knew  that  in 
Art,  at  least,  his  ways  had  been  justified — 
“ Je  suis  un  isole}  un  revasseur , qui  sfest 


60  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


trop  complu  a rester  dans  son  coin  et  a 
regarder  le  del.9*  But  he  had  his  Exhibi- 
tions ; humble  at  first ; then  more  visibly 
important — Durand-Ruel,  a picture  lover 
d'avant  garde , and  some  of  the  younger  of 
the  dealers,  too,  were  believing  in  him. 
Alexandre  Dumas — the  second  of  the 
name,  of  course — bought  two  of  his 
things,  and  wrote  to  him,  at  a later  time, 
imploring  him  for  a third.  What  he  asked 
for  was  “ a great  sky,  a line  of  sea,  and  on 
that  sea  one  boat.” 

Yet  when  Boudin  found  purchasers  his 
terms  were  low  ; the  period  of  the  War 
and  of  the  Commune  (1870-71)  saw  him 
in  dire  straits  ; and  he  who  had  been  at 
Trouville,  painting  in  poverty,  Summer 
after  Summer,  not  only  the  landscape  but 
the  people  of  the  Plage  (they  are  amongst 
the  most  vivacious  of  his  sketches),  passed 
over  to  Belgium,  and  so  to  Dordrecht,  and 
set  down  with  a power  not  less  than  Jacob 
Maris’s,  and  always  his  own,  the  towns  and 
towers  and  long  canals  of  the  Low  Countries. 

Returning  to  France,  in  the  very  fullest 
possession  of  his  means — living  still  from 
hand  to  mouth,  and  sustained  only  by  the 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


61 


strength  of  his  delight  in  Nature  and  in  the 
ever-opening  vistas  of  his  art — Boudin  was 
in  the  North  mainly,  where  was  that 
“ pay  sage  de  mer  ” (Courbet's  phrase)  of 
which  the  ships  he  knew  so  well,  and  drew 
so  skilfully,  were  but  the  incidents  and,  so 
to  say,  the  figures.  But  once,  at  least,  in 
the  middle  of  the  'Seventies — in  the  middle 
of  his  greatest  years,  that  is,  for  his  greatest 
years  were  not  those  of  his  largest  canvases 
— Boudin  was  at  Bordeaux.  And  the 
“ Port  de  Bordeaux,"  which  represents  him 
at  the  Luxembourg — and  which  is  large  by 
exception — is  in  every  way  one  of  the  most 
considerable  of  the  pictures  devoted  to  the 
aspects  of  ports.  It  is  a comprehensive  and 
elaborate  record  of  the  town  and  its  pur- 
suits : it  is  a vision  and  a history.  But  it 
has  not,  and  it  cannot  have,  the  charm  of 
impressions  less  complex,  more  vivid,  and 
more  personal — those  smaller  pieces  in 
which  it  is  now  the  outer  port  of  Havre, 
or  now  the  harbour  front  of  Dieppe  or  of 
Trouville,  or  now  the  quay  of  Fecamp,  that 
is  brought  actually  before  us,  with  its 
characteristic  shipping,  and  its  tidal  waters, 
and  its  background  of  Channel  skies. 


62  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


These  smaller  pictures,  when  they  went 
to  the  Salons,  were  almost  lost  there  ; yet 
in  ’87  “ Etaples  ; maree  basse,”  of  modest 
proportions,  perfectly  composed,  and  with 
such  spirited  figures  (but  Boudin's  groups, 
whether  of  figures  or  of  cattle,  were  good 
always),  is  recognised  as  a “ morceau  de 
choix , morceau  accompli , symphonie  des  gris 
des  plus  delicats  .”  The  succeeding  year  the 
painter  had  an  Exhibition  on  the  Boulevard 
de  la  Madeleine,  followed  by  a sale  at  the 
Hotel  des  Ventes.  Sixty  Pictures,  thirty 
Pastels,  ten  Water-colours.  The  result, 
scarcely  £400. 

One  year  later,  he  lost  his  wife.  He 
was  childless,  I believe.  But  companions 
he  had,  of  either  sex.  In  the  Winter, 
Paris  was  now  his  home.  And — as  to 
his  affairs — by  an  irony  of  circum- 
stance, the  tide  turned. 

But  time  began  to  tell  on  him.  In  his 
latest  years,  he  went  to  Venice,  and  health 
compelled  him,  and  money  then  allowed 
him,  to  winter  in  the  South.  He  painted 
Venice  ably — but  it  was  not  his  field.  Bou- 
din had  true  visions  of  the  French  Riviera 
— of  the  “ Cote  d'Azur  " — but  he  did  not 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


63 


exhaust  its  charm,  and  did  not,  perhaps, 
seize  the  most  characteristic  of  its  features. 

Already  an  incidental  reference  has 
implied  or  mentioned  the  mediums  in  which 
Boudin  worked  ; but  Boudin  used  these 
mediums  with  such  unfailing  appropriate- 
ness, and  he  transferred  himself  from  one 
to  another  with  such  freedom,  that  they 
and  the  themes  he  treated  in  them 
must  be  discussed  a little  less  superficially. 
As  regards  scale,  he  had  the  good  sense  to 
confine  Pastel  and  Water-colour — and,  one 
need  hardly  add,  Pencil-work — to  the  size 
that  exhibits  best,  and  justifies  most,  the 
means  he  was  at  the  moment  employing.  In 
these  mediums  he  did  nothing  large  in  size  : 
the  largeness  was  in  his  style,  rather.  In  Oil, 
the  best  work  of  his  middle  period — the 
work  by  which  for  the  most  part  he  lives — 
is,  with  but  very  few  exceptions,  of  more 
or  less  modest  scale.  The  masterpieces 
that  show  best  the  finely  conceived  breadth 
of  his  noblest  time — that  are  veritable  lyrics 
of  weather — measure  sometimes  twelve 
inches  by  nine  ; sometimes  twenty  inches 
by  fifteen,  or  thereabouts.  When  he  goes 
much  beyond  this,  he  is  apt  to  be  a little 

6— (2314) 


64  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


empty,  or,  less  frequently,  a little  laboured 
— anyhow  a little  less  personal.  His  treat- 
ment of  his  themes,  with  the  art  at  his 
command,  with  all  his  learning  and 
dexterity,  has  no  need  for  wandering  into 
vastness.  The  precision  of  his  earlier  work 
— I am  not  speaking  of  his  earliest — has  its 
own  charm  ; it  is  a precision  not  devoid  of 
breadth.  But  I prefer  to  that — and  I prefer 
even  to  the  looser  largeness  of  his  latest 
time — the  strangely  expressive  breadth  of 
his  middle  period — from  1865  to  1880,  as 
near  as  may  be,  marks  that  period’s  limits 
— when,  with  delicate,  decisive  hand,  he 
was  pouring  out  accumulated  stores.  Then 
it  was  that  his  realism  was  most  fearless : 
then  it  was  that  it  was  most  essentially 
poetic. 

Water-colour,  Boudin  used  generally  for 
more  or  less  brief  notes  : sometimes  extra- 
ordinarily pregnant ; but  rarely  exhausting 
— never  pretending  to  exhaust — the  possi- 
bilities of  his  theme.  His  Trouville  crowds, 
or  Trouville  groups,  of  the  later  ’Sixties — 
before  the  reign  of  crinoline  was  quite 
passed — have,  as  far  as  our  eyes  are 
concerned  (and  our  prejudices  into  the 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


05 


bargain),  some  obvious  difficulties  to  con- 
tend with.  They  surmount  them — they 
win  us  to  their  side.  Admirably  these  notes 
record  the  aspect  of  the  beach  on  a Sep- 
tember morning  : the  cool,  clear  light,  an 
hour  before  breakfast-time  : the  attitudes, 
the  very  gossip,  of  Parisians  en  villegiature. 
But  when  Boudin  wills  that  the  people 
shall  become  of  secondary  importance — 
when  the  pageant  of  sunset  is  his  motive 
instead,  or,  seen  from  the  Jetty  perhaps, 
the  ominous  marshalling  of  cloud  above 
grey  cloud — he  turns  to  Pastel,  and  by  that 
medium,  sumptuous  and  summary,  the 
effect  is  rendered — the  end  before  him 
attained.  Again,  no  one  has  understood 
better  than  Boudin — not  even  Prout  of  old, 
or  Fulleylove  in  our  own  day — no  one  has 
understood  better  than  Boudin  the  extra- 
ordinary expressiveness  of  the  Lead  Pencil, 
He  has  employed  it  chiefly  for  notes — some- 
times for  complete  little  drawings — of 
Shipping.  A fishing  boat,  it  may  be,  in 
the  quiet  corner  and  refuge  of  the  port ; or 
with  its  sails  catching  the  sunlight,  as  in 
brisk  and  pleasant  weather  it  makes  for  the 
sea.  Or,  perhaps,  in  a larger  harbour,  and 


66  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


alongside  of  some  spacious  quay,  two  or 
three  trois-mats — their  rigging  against  clear 
sky— are  moored  in  stately  line.  The 
earlier  pencil  drawings,  exact  and  scrupu- 
lous in  chronicle,  are  pencil.  In  the  later 
ones — in  which  the  record  of  effects  is  com- 
passed, as  much  as  the  record  of  form — 
it  has  occurred  to  Boudin  that  four  learned 
dabs  of  Indian  ink  will  help  the  chiaro- 
’scuro — will  give  emphasis  and  strength  to 
what,  for  all  its  economy  of  means  and  all 
its  speed,  is  really  a little  picture. 

“ Where,  apart  from  the  galleries  of  such 
Parisian  dealers  as  Durand-Ruel,  Allard, 
Georges  Bernheim,  Gerard,  and  such  private 
houses  as  that  of  M.  Gustave  Cahen  in 
Paris,  and  that  of  M.  Van  der  Velde  at 
Havre,  may  Boudins  be  seen  in  any 
number  ? ” The  question  is  a fair  one. 
The  Luxembourg  has  put  away,  for  the 
moment,  all  but  the  “ Port  of  Bor- 
deaux.Well — apart  from  these  places — 
the  most  interesting  spots  in  which 
to  see  them  are  Havre  and  Honfleur. 
Havre  especially  ; for  there,  within  sight  of 
the  Museum  windows,  lies  so  much  that 
Boudin  painted — within  sight  of  the 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


67 


Museum  windows,  ride  the  boats,  and  roll 
the  waters,  and  forms  and  re-forms  itself 
the  changeful  sky  which  were  the  very 
theme  and  inspiration  of  Boudin's  art. 

The  large  Brittany  picture,  in  the  Havre 
Museum,  the  “ Pardon  de  Sainte  Anne  la 
Palud  ” — I have  mentioned  it  already — is 
sufficiently  pale  and  inexpressive  in  colour  : 
sufficiently  tame  in  touch.  But  that  is  a 
piece  of  1858 — only  it  is  worth  noting  that, 
early  though  it  is,  Boudin  had  given  before 
it  much  promise,  not  in  it  fulfilled.  He 
had  given  it  in  considerably  earlier  pieces  : 
quiet  little  bits  as  they  are  ; one,  a Fort 
apparently,  and  the  terrain  vague  that  lies 
near  it ; another  of  the  same  fort,  it  would 
seem,  seen  differently — with  a glimpse  of 
water  beyond.  And  they  are  dated  “ 1852  ” 
— the  year  after  the  town  of  Havre  pen- 
sioned Boudin.  A picture  of  the  Giudecca, 
with  the  Ducal  Palace,  comes  near  the  end 
of  his  career,  and  represents  that  work  at 
Venice  which  for  the  artist  was  neither  a 
great  failure  nor  a brilliant  success.  It  is 
nearly  three  feet  long ; and  by  it,  and 
of  much  the  same  dimensions,  are  two 
interesting  visions  of  the  Channel ; one, 


68  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


indeed,  very  slight  and  sketchy — a record 
of  tossed  seas  and  breezy  sky — the  other 
the  jetee  du  Havre , swept  over  by  tempestu- 
ous waters  ; the  lighthouse  at  the  jetty’s 
end  standing  out,  white  and  steadfast, 
against  a sky  that  is  one  vast  sheet  of 
greyish  lead.  And,  not  to  speak  of  in- 
numerable Sky  studies,  now  turquoise  and 
now  leaden,  now  orange,  rose,  or  saffron, 
and  studies  of  Havre  fishing-boats  and 
rich-hued  cattle  in  fat  meadows  by  the 
Toucques,  there  is  particularly  to  be  noticed, 
in  that  Museum  of  Le  Havre,  a splendid 
vision  of  an  illuminated  shore  and  hillside 
be}^ond  a dark  foreground  and  a shadowed 
river  ; and  again,  a study  of  a row  of  seated 
people  with  bathing  huts  to  right  and  a sky 
of  grey,  with  rose  in  it  : an  ebauche  if  you 
will,  but  full  of  tone,  and  from  the  very  first 
a picture.  These  Studies  and  their  like — 
two  hundred  in  number — form  the  generous, 
lavish  gift  of  M.  Louis  Boudin  to  the  town 
that  helped  his  brother’s  first  steps. 

In  the  Museum  at  Honfleur — looking  out 
almost  on  Boudin’s  Bust,  by  the  shore — 
are  a few  vivid  oil  sketches,  good  and 
interesting  enough  in  themselves  ; but  they 


FANTIN  AND  BOUDIN 


69 


at  all  events  do  not  quite  equal  the  best 
of  the  many  at  Le  Havre.  They  were 
obtained  for  Honfleur  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  M.  Louveau,  I believe.  And  it 
is  sketches — but  sketches  in  all  mediums  : 
Oil  and  Pastel  and  Pencil  and  Water- 
colour (though  chiefly  of  a period  before 
1870) — that  are  possessed,  in  a quaint, 
delightful  house,  of  the  Rue  Eugene 
Boudin,  by  M.  Louveau  himself — Boudin’s 
friend  : the  friend  who  closed  Boudin’s 
eyes  ; who  keeps  religiously,  in  a chamber 
shown  to  few,  Boudin’s  palettes,  his  easel, 
and,  on  the  easel,  the  last  sketch  he  made. 

He  left  that  sketch  unfinished.  It  is  a 
sea  sunset  : orange,  shot  with  red.  And  in 
its  glory,  as  in  Boudin’s  own  glory  when  he 
did  it,  there  is  no  hint  of  melancholy,  but 
that  which  belongs  to  the  end  of  a day — 
and  to  the  end  of  the  day  of  a man. 


IV 


RICHARD  WILSON 

The  Winter  Show  of  the  old  Masters  in 
1892  fitly  opened  with  an  unquestioned 
masterpiece  by  an  artist  whose  work  com- 
bines in  singular  measure  the  attributes  of 
grace  and  learning,  a sense  of  Style  and  a 
Sense  of  poetry,  with  the  most  accurate  and 
scientific  and  craftsmanlike  of  labour.  For 
students  of  the  English  School  I have 
already  named  the  painter — I have  named, 
of  course,  Richard  Wilson.  Mr.  Went- 
worth Beaumont's  picture,  “ Apollo  and 
the  Seasons,"  belongs,  it  would  seem,  to 
almost  the  latest  period  in  which  this  long- 
neglected  master  of  Classic  design  practised 
his  art.  It  is  probable  that  it  is  a canvas 
contributed  to  the  Royal  Academy,  under 
the  same  name  as  that  under  which  it  now 
figures,  in  1779 — three  years  after  Richard 
Wilson,  failing  to  make  both  ends  meet, 
with  decent  comfort,  by  the  sale  of  his 

70 


RICHARD  WILSON 


71 


pictures,  had  been  appointed  Librarian  to 
the  institution  of  which,  as  a painter,, 
he — though  it  was  little  realised  then — 
was  destined  to  be  one  of  the  most 
abiding  ornaments. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  Richard 
Wilson — who,  when  he  abode  in  a mean 
lodging  out  of  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
thought  himself  happy  to  receive  fifteen 
guineas  for  an  admirable  instance  of  his 
art — actually  laboured  on  Mr.  Beaumont's 
canvas  within  a few  months  of  his  exhibit- 
ing it ; for  long  before  that  time  disappoint- 
ment had  instructed  him  in  the  best  fashion 
of  accepting  the  verdict  of  his  day,  and  he 
may  not  have  forced  upon  the  public  what 
the  public  was  not  ready  to  receive.  In 
any  case,  “ Apollo  and  the  Seasons  ” is  a 
late  picture,  as  well  as  a fine  one,  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  reflect  that  if,  a little  before  its 
exhibition,  the  painter  had  accepted  a post 
which  a popular  and  busy  man  would 
scarcely  crave,  a little  afterwards  his 
inheritance  of  a small  private  fortune  freed 
him  from  difficulties,  and  he  went  back  to 
finish  his  days  calmly  in  his  own  romantic 
land. 


V 


GOYA 

To  make  the  differences  between  the  old 
and  the  new  in  Spanish  Art  most  apparent, 
we  have,  in  our  examination  of  it,  to  jump 
from  the  one  to  the  other.  The  transition 
seems  less  abrupt  if  we  follow  the  historical 
sequence,  and,  between  the  great  men  of 
the  Renaissance  and  clever  modern  people, 
place  a man — who  was  a genius — neither 
old  nor  new  : Francis  Goya.  Yet,  in  truth, 
for  all  Goya’s  boldness  and  variety,  his 
affinity  was  with  the  old — with  Velasquez  at 
all  events — more  than  with  the  modern.  His 
figures  had  immense  activity  ; his  groups, 
great  movement ; but  his  Art  no  restless- 
ness. A seeming  Revolutionary  at  one 
moment,  he  ends  by  taking  rank  as  a 
Classic. 

Never  has  there  been  seen  in  England 
anything  approaching  the  representation  of 

72 


GOYA 


73 


him  made  one  year  at  the  Guildhall.  It 
was  not,  and  it  could  not  be,  perfect  : 
Madrid  and  Seville  hold  too  many  of 
Goya’s  finest  pieces.  But  at  the  Guildhall 
they  did  much. 

Goya  had  a long  life.  Born  near  Sara- 
gossa in  1746— about  the  time  when 
Hogarth  was  painting  “ The  Lady’s  Last 
Stake  ” — he  died  at  Bordeaux,  in  1828, 
when  the  genius  of  Constable  was  mature. 
Although  himself  a “ Romantic  ” to  the 
last  degree,  he  was  the  personal  friend  of 
Louis  David.  There  is  work  of  his — the 
portrait  of  “ Dr.  Payrel  ” : it  must  be  a 
late  piece — which  shows  him  akin  to  Gains- 
borough in  elegance,  in  power  of  character 
drawing,  and  in  the  very  scheme  of  colour 
or  method  of  brush  work.  His  “ Bulls  ” — a 
piece  belonging  to  Mr.  W.  M‘Kay — is  at  the 
same  time  pictorial  and  dramatic — nothing 
more  convincing,  more  vivid.  Some  of  the 
more  famous  of  his  work  in  black  and  white 
— for  Goya  was  etcher,  aquatinter,  and  a 
master  of  Lithography,  as  well  as  painter — 
is  occupied  with  the  same  theme.  We  were 
indebted  to  the  Marques  de  Casa-Torres  for 
the  loan  of  “ The  Maypole.”  As  Goya 


74  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


conceives  it,  the  Maypole  is  a sort  of  mat 
de  cocagne.  People  do  not  dance  round  it  : 
they  climb  up  it,  instead.  An  eager  crowd 
moves  and  watches  ; and  behind  and  away 
from  them,  a great  white  house  upon  a 
barren  hillside  rises  brilliant  against  an 
indigo  and  steel-blue  sky.  This  is  the  work 
not  only  of  a master  of  dramatic  movement, 
but  of  an  adept  at  chiaro  ’scuro,  and  of  a 
colourist. 

Goya  attracts  me  less  in  his  portrait  of 
the  Duchess  of  Benavente.  It  shows 
pretty  effects  of  colour,  and  a skilful  hand- 
ling ; but  the  model  had,  it  would  seem, 
but  little  attraction,  either  of  spirit  or  form. 
Yet  this  was  one  of  the  women  of  whom 
Goya  was  most  enamoured.  The  fancy  had 
already  passed,  perhaps — or  was  at  least 
passing — when  the  painter  applied  his  hands 
to  this  canvas.  It  may  be  that  by  that  time 
his  affections — for  he  was  a creature  of 
uncontrolled  impulse — were  already  trans- 
ferred to  that  Duchess  of  Alba  whose 
“ subtle  personality/’  as  Mr.  Rotherstein 
properly  calls  it,  is  to  be  traced  in  many 
scenes  of  “ The  Caprices/’  and  whose 
portrait  is  presented  with  quite  amazing 


GOYA 


75 


frankness — without  one  touch  of  reticence, 
naked  and  unashamed— in  the  famous  and 
beautiful  “ Maja  ” of  the  Academy  of  San 
Fernando. 


VI 


THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  WATER- 
COLOUR 

In  Water-colour  Painting,  England  is 
generally  accounted  so  supreme  that  we 
sometimes  think  there  has  been  water- 
colour nowhere  but  here,  and  that  we 
invented  as  well  as  surpassed.  That  is  a 
mistake,  however.  The  invention  of  Water- 
colour does  not  belong  to  us — nor  as  France 
has  long  shown,  does  its  only  excellent 
practice.  There  are  rare  drawings  by 
Diirer  washed  in  water-colour  ; Rembrandt 
occasionally  used  water-colour  ; and  it  was 
used  much  oftener,  and  with  a success  more 
obviously  complete  by  other  Dutchmen, 
who  were  Rembrandt's  contemporaries. 

Ostade  was  the  chief  of  these  others. 
Ostade,  when  we  forget  his  sentiments  and 
forgive  the  hideousness  of  his  types,  stands 
in  our  memory  as  a perfect  craftsman,  a 

76 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  77 


prince  of  technique . I suppose  no  one  who 
ever  worked  in  Art,  succeeded  more 
habitually  than  Ostade  in  doing  precisely 
what  he  wanted  to  do,  and  in  doing  nothing 
else.  He  pourtrayed  with  refinement  a 
gross  life,  and  attractively  executed  a 
repulsive  theme.  A master  of  Oil-painting, 
a master  of  Etching — one  who  in  that  Art 
long  threw  his  gifted  contemporary,  Bega, 
unduly  into  the  shade — he  became  in  his  old 
age,  at  a time  when  even  genius  is  wont  to 
wax  dull,  and  the  accustomed  track  is  more 
welcome  to  most  men  than  the  dangerous 
experiment,  a master  of  Water-colour.  His 
Water-colour  was  no  thing  of  careful  outline 
lightly  washed  ; it  was  full  Water-colour, 
complete,  with  every  effect  realised. 

The  English  School,  one  would  have 
thought,  might  have  derived  from  Ostade 
or  his  fellows,  but  it  seems  that  it  had 
another  origin.  English  taste,  during  many 
years  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  leant  to 
the  study  of  Topography  rather  than  of  Art. 
Or  is  “ study  ” too  dignified  a word  ? 
Hardly  perhaps  in  so  far  as  the  research  was 
prompted  by  antiquarian  zeal,  and  not  by 
vanity  alone.  At  all  events,  such  research 


78  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


into  the  history  of  the  ancient  monument 
hard  by,  and  such  pardonable  pride  in  the 
new  “ seat  ” which  was  to  be  famous  over 
all  a country-side,  led  to  the  execution  now 
of  single  designs,  and  now  of  whole  series  of 
designs,  which  were  destined  generally  to 
be  engraved.  Accuracy  was  above  all 
things  wanted  in  these  designs,  and  the 
demand  for  them  encouraged,  I suppose,  a 
school  of  correct  draughtsmen,  of  whom 
the  younger  and  the  more  independent 
sought  — well  — to  be  colourists  we  can 
hardly  say,  but  sought  at  least  to  become 
acquainted  with  colour.  Thus  the  drawing, 
at  first  perhaps  chiefly  outline,  then  accu- 
rate outline  timidly  washed,  gained  “ local 
colour,”  suggested  rather  than  realised — a 
little  blue  in  the  sky,  thin  greenish  colour 
and  brown  for  the  foliage,  a darker  brown, 
low  in  the  drawing,  for  foreground  and  earth. 
And  this  was  done  with  an  enforced  and 
obligatory  moderation,  easily  to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  willing  reserve  of  strength  ; 
done  with  a touch  full  of  convention,  and 
constantly  repeated,  and  cramped  in  its 
effects — the  touch  of  the  prudent  beginners 
upon  whom  there  has  not  as  yet  fallen  the 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  79 


blessing  of  the  freedom  of  Art.  These  men 
made  ready  the  way.  From  Sandby’s  time 
the  art  was  a little  more  visible  in  the  crafts- 
manship ; the  distance  a little  greater  that 
separated  the  newer  skill  from  the  neat 
handicraft  ; the  artistic  feeling  rose  as  the 
capabilities  of  the  method  were  gradually 
revealed  to  the  men  who  practised  it. 
Then  came  Marlow,  Malton,  Wheatley,  and 
John  Cozens,  and  then  Girtin,  Turner,  and 
the  complete  emancipation. 

Of  these  few  men  whose  names  have  just 
been  mentioned,  Marlow  and  Malton  were 
of  the  topographical  and  antiquarian  school. 
Malton  was  the  son  of  an  earlier  Malton, 
who  had  written  a Treatise  on  Perspective 
in  Theory  and  Practice.  He  was  himself 
the  author  of  the  Picturesque  Tour  through 
London , and  it  is  recorded  of  him  that  he 
taught  perspective  to  the  youth  who  was 
one  day  to  be  the  acknowledged  chief  in 
English  Art.  He  was  born  in  1748. 
Marlow  had  been  born  eight  years  earlier^ 
and  was  a pupil  of  Samuel  Scott,  one 
of  the  few  excellent  painters  among 
the  companions  of  Hogarth.  Marlow 
was  not  only  a pupil,  but  a follower; 

7— (2314) 


80  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


devoting  himself  very  much  to  the  record 
of  the  town,  and  uniting  accuracy  to 
picturesque  effect.  “ A View  of  Saint  Paul's 
from  Ludgate  Hill,”  was  shown  as  from 
his  brush  at  the  great  Water-colour  Exhibi- 
tion at  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  in 
1871,  and  Mr.  Henderson,  the  owner  of  that 
drawing,  owned  at  the  time  another  not 
less  accurate  and  real,  and  perhaps  more 
poetical  than  this.  It  was  of  “ Fish  Street 
Hill.” 

But  for  what  would  generally  be  consi- 
dered the  poetic  side  of  the  newer  school, 
we  must  get  at  least  to  Wheatley  or  to 
Cozens.  I do  not  name  them  as  equals. 
Both  were  men  of  rapidly-roused 
emotions  : men  alike  perhaps  only  in  their 
intense  susceptibility.  Wheatley,  when 
very  young,  and  with  imagination  inflamed 
by  stage-sights  and  tavern-talk,  conceived 
himself  violently  in  love  with  the  wife  of 
the  most  famous  dancing-master  of  his  time ; 
and  with  her  he  eloped  to  Dublin,  in  days 
when  elopements  were  fashionable  and 
Dublin  beyond  reach.  It  was  an  episode, 
and  not  a main  theme — other  business  was 
in  store  for  him.  He  returned  to  town — 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  81 


abandoning  not  only  Ireland,  but  Bohemia 
— and  the  fatted  calf  was  forthcoming.  He 
married  a placid  and  a graceful  woman, 
who  was  also  an  agreeable  artist ; he 
painted,  with  approval,  a ceiling  at  Lord 
Melbourne’s  ; Alderman  Boydell  employed 
him  in  the  illustration  of  Shakespeare  ; he 
produced  his  picturesque  figures  of  “ The 
Cries  of  London  ” ; and  when  he  died,  at 
fifty-four,  he  had  been  eleven  years  a 
member  of  the  Royal  Academy.  He 
deserves  to  be  remembered,  though  his 
sentiment  was  often  sentimentality,  and  his 
beauty  prettiness.  For  he  made,  some- 
times exquisitely,  delicate  studies  of  rustic 
figures  in  woodland  or  at  cottage  door.  He 
idealised  at  all  events  frankly ; even  exag- 
gerating Gainsborough’s  manner  of  bestow- 
ing on  the  rural  life  a grace  hardly  its  own. 
Knowing  nothing  of  the  strength  and 
greatness  of  Nature,  he  could  yet  suggest 
her  peace,  in  his  slighter  drawings,  in  which 
the  Ophelias  and  Mirandas  of  a beatified 
peasantry  wander  over  a gentle  hillside  or 
down  the  road  through  the  coppice. 

Cozens  was  a poet  of  a sterner  sort,  and 
the  dignity  of  his  art  owed  something  to 


82  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


that  of  his  environment.  He  made  it  his 
business  to  pourtray  Italy,  and  it  was  always 
classic  Italy — Italy  seen  on  that  stately  side 
which  painters  have  been  wont  to  select — 
an  Italy  that  displays  nothing  familiar  or 
of  every  day,  but  wears  a robe,  it  may  be 
of  ceremony,  certainly  of  severity  and  of 
reserve.  Perhaps  there  is  only  one  artist, 
and  he  is  modern  and  contemporary — I 
mean  Costa — who  has  seen  Italy  as  a more 
homely  land,  in  such  a way  as  Browning 
has  seen  and  has  described  it  in  An 
Englishman  in  Italy — as  a land  where 
the  daily  life  of  humble  men  has  as  certainly 
to  be  led  as  in  the  Beauce  or  in  Lincolnshire, 
and  where  many  a landscape,  that  is  not 
stately  at  all,  justifies  the  dull  task  or  the 
trivial  diversion  of  the  hour.  For  Cozens 
that  Italy  did  not  exist,  any  more  than  for 
Claude  or  for  Wilson ; but  Cozens,  like 
Wilson,  found  at  all  events  in  the  Italy  of 
Classic  association,  an  Italy  that  was  not 
theatrical — that  retained  a tranquil  gravity 
in  stateliness  and  a simplicity  in  grandeur. 
Cozens,  if  he  was  limited  in  theme,  was  as 
limited  in  range  of  hue — even  the  sombre 
green  of  the  cypress,  rising  against  the  sky. 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  83 


had  hardly  its  true  local  colour  with  him — 
but  a profound  and  genuine  sentiment 
inspired  his  work.  It  was  sometimes  grand, 
and  it  was  often  melancholy.  It  was  the 
work  he  was  born  for. 

Cozens  had  but  one  note  ; or,  if  we  prefer 
it,  he  composed  but  for  one  instrument- 
For  Turner,  were  all  the  resources  of  the 
modern  orchestra.  Turner  made  light  of 
difficulties  and  banished  restraints — he  had 
his  will  with  his  art.  Technically  he 
belonged  both  to  the  modern  and  to  the 
ancient  regime ; that  is,  as  regards  the 
medium,  he  painted  in  pure  water-colour 
and  he  employed  body-colour,  as  he  chose  ; 
and,  as  regards  range  of  hue,  he  was  in  his 
youth  the  most  reserved  and  in  his  age  the 
most  audacious  of  men. 

Turner  must  have  been  a stripling — he 
can  never  have  seen  Italy  and  the  Alps — 
when  he  executed  certain  drawings,  of  a 
greyish  blue,  varied  only  by  greyish 
brown,  which  were  found,  and  had  indeed 
been  previously  known,  in  the  wonderful 
collection  of  Mr.  Sackville  Bale.  These 
drawings  must  have  been  happy  inventions, 
suggested,  possibly,  by  prints.  There  was 


84  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


in  them,  for  all  their  timid  and  limited 
colour,  the  very  spirit  of  the  enchanted 
land  that  he  foresaw.  Already  the  master 
of  faultless  draughtsmanship  laid  out  on 
paper  the  bend  of  the  lake  shore  and  the 
flat  marsh-land  where  the  lake  is  fed  by  the 
river,  and  the  earlier  course  of  the  gathering 
stream  among  the  upland  pastures  and  the 
roots  of  the  hills.  Already  the  art  of 
Composition,  in  which,  with  Wilson,  Varley, 
and  George  Barret,  the  age  was  great,  held 
back  from  him  no  secret.  The  secrets  were 
Turner's  own.  He  had  passed  quickly  from 
the  stage  at  which  Composition  is  not 
employed,  to  that  at  which  it  is  not  only 
employed  but  concealed.  And  a complete 
subtlety  of  shadow  and  light,  a luminous- 
ness in  shadow,  a continual  variety  obtained 
by  tints  just  broken,  were  evidenced  in 
these  drawings. 

Not  long  after  Turner  executed  these 
works  so  delicate  and  broad,  of  which  only 
the  true  amateur  fully  perceives  the 
beauty,  he  and  Girtin  were  engaged 
together  in  enlarging  the  resources  and 
varying  the  methods  of  their  art.  The 
blue-grey  drawings — lightly  washed — of 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  85 


Chiavenna,  Como,  and  the  Italian  slopes 
of  the  dividing  Alps — were  no  evidence 
of  such  enlargement  and  variety.  In 
their  means,  they  were  old-fashioned  and 
conservative — what  they  revealed  was  a 
new  and  more  poetic  vision  of  the  world, 
and  the  presence  in  our  art  of  a new  genius 
who  would  revolutionise  where  he  did  not 
modify,  and  would  complete  where  he 
did  not  overthrow.  Girtin  was  Turner's 
companion  in  labour — to  some  extent  his 
companion  in  life — during  a few  years. 
Then  Girtin  died  ; his  work  having  in  some 
respects  surpassed  all  that  had  been  done 
in  Water-colour  up  to  the  moment  of  his 
death.  The  earlier  and  simpler  drawings 
of  Varley — done  soon  after  Girtin  was  in 
his  grave — are  perhaps  all  that  can  be 
compared  with  it.  Turner  himself  ad- 
mitted its  excellence  with  cordiality — it  is 
told  of  him  that  when  a connoisseur,  more 
plain-spoken  than  polite,  declared  to  the 
great  Turner  that  in  his  hackney-coach, 
now  at  the  door,  there  was  a drawing  “ finer 
than  any  of  yours,”  the  great  Turner,  after 
the  first  moment  of  irritation,  replied  to 
his  visitor,  “ Well  then,  if  it  is  finer  than 


86  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


any  of  mine,  I can  tell  you  what  drawing 
is  in  your  hackney-coach.  It  is  Tom  Girtin's 
* White  House  at  Chelsea/  ” 

But  the  period  of  Turner's  mature  life — 
especially,  say,  the  nearly  thirty  years  from 
the  beginning  of  the  Liber  Studiorum  to  the 
issue  of  Rogers's  Poems  in  1834 — was  a 
time  when  the  advance  in  Water-Colour  was 
not  really  dependent  upon  him.  He  was 
in  the  front,  but  he  was  not  alone.  The  best 
of  Cotman's  massive  and  glowing  work  in 
water-colour  was  done  during  the  Liber 
Studiorum  time.  His  vision  of  colour, 
during  all  that  time,  was  ample,  and  it  was 
sane.  His  draughtsmanship  was  certain, 
and  it  was  economical  of  labour.  He  could 
deal  vigorously  with  effects  of  weather  and 
wind.  That,  in  fine — and  hardly  a later 
period — was  the  time  at  which  he  was  doing 
the  work  which  won  the  praise  of  Turner, 
and  that  active  interest  which  caused 
Turner,  years  later,  when  the  question  was 
referred  to  him  as  to  who  should  be  elected 
to  the  “ professorship  " of  Drawing  in  a 
London  public  school,  to  say,  somewhat 
testily,  “ Elect  Cotman,  elect  Cotman — I 
tell  you  again,  elect  Cotman  ! " 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  87 


The  best  work  of  Dewint  was  done  during 
the  middle  life  of  Turner,  and  it  was  work 
not  more  dependent  than  Cotman’s  upon 
the  study  and  practice  of  the  yet  greater 
master.  Dewint’s  best  world — the  world 
of  the  English  lowlands — he  saw  in  his  own 
way.  His  handling  was  as  simple  as  was 
his  theme.  A characteristic  of  Girtin’s — 
the  low  tone  of  his  drawings — is  a character- 
istic also  of  Dewint’s.  The  keenness  of  his 
vision  and  the  directness  of  his  transcript 
ensured  him  unity  of  effect.  He  was 
among  the  last  of  the  great  sketchers, 
and  little  concerned  with  intricacy  of 
composition. 

Dewint  sketched  to  perfection  in  his 
younger  manhood.  Looking  at  his  work  a 
good  deal,  and  always  sympathetically,  I 
have  never  had  cause  to  see  that  his  sketches 
improved,  as  time  passed.  There  is  some- 
times difficulty  with  them,  however  ; for 
as  he  held,  and  rightly  held,  the  opinion, 
that  “ they  were  signed  all  over,”  he  never 
signed  them  superfluously  in  the  corner, 
and  consequently  never  dated  them.  But 
there  are  changes  in  their  manner,  or  rather, 
as  time  went  on,  the  change  is  possibly 


88  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


this — that  the  earlier  sketches,  on  which  his 
fame  should  greatly  rest,  gave  way  too  much 
to  drawings  done  as  lessons  for  pupils, 
always  in  the  pupils’  presence,  and  some- 
times with  Nature  more  imagined  than 
seen,  and  the  master  occupied  but  little 
with  his  theme  and  content  to  display  in 
chief  the  manly  and  admirable  method 
which  years  had  consecrated.  As  long  as 
Dewint’s  sketches  last  they  must  be 
prized  most  highly.  Pure  water-colour 
has  nothing  better  to  show  : it  has 

nothing  simpler,  broader,  more  solid,  more 
suggestive. 

David  Cox’s  sketches — pure  water-colour 
likewise — are  of  an  effectiveness  that  is 
immediately  recognised.  They  are  obvi- 
ously vigorous  ; but  he  would  be  audacious 
who  should  say  that  the  best  of  them 
were  therefore  less  refined.  The  short- 
hand of  Art  has  seldom  been  more 
completely  expressive  than  it  has  been  in 
them,  so  that  the  name  of  David  Cox — 
like  that  of  Thomas  Collier,  who  succeeded 
to  his  traditions  and  improved  on  them — 
may  be  mentioned  with  the  great  names 
already  uttered.  But  David  Cox’s  genius 


ENGLISH  WATER-COLOUR  89 


came  to  him  in  his  old  age  ; it  took  him 
half  a century  of  work  to  make  that  sketch 
of  “ Stokesay  Castle  ” * which  he  executed 
in  a single  morning  ; it  was  “ by  dint  of 
labour  ” — previous  labour — that  he  threw 
off  drawings  in  which  there  was  no  trace  of 
labour  at  all.  The  changes  in  David  Cox's 
art  are  perhaps  not  in  themselves  more 
marked  than  those  in  the  art  of  many 
another  painter  who  has  lived  through  a 
long  life  and  a period  of  progress  ; but  it 
is  remarkable  that  they  show  him  not 
only  another  man  but  a greater  man  at 
sixty-five  than  at  forty. 

* The  Stokesay  Castle  which  Mr.  Levy,  I think, 
bought  at  the  Stone-Ellis  sale.  It  was  rightly  held 
by  Mr.  Ellis  to  be  the  finest  of  all  the  sketches  that 
had  come  to  him  from  the  artist,  his  friend. 


VII 


ROMNEY  AND  LAWRENCE 

Romney  was  never  a penetrating  inter- 
preter of  human  character,  and  in  Miss 
Kitty  Calcraft,  whose  pleasant  pertness  he 
recorded  picturesquely,  there  were,  it  is 
more  than  probable,  no  depths  to  fathom. 
Often  that  was  quite  otherwise,  but  here 
the  painter  was  sufficient  for  his  theme. 
One  little  canvas,  however,  shown  in  the 
same  room,  one  year  at  the  Old  Master's — 
a canvas  less  highly  wrought ; it  may 
almost  be  said  “ unfinished  ” — is  more 
characteristic,  not  only  in  its  breadth 
of  touch  and  in  its  scheme  of  colour,  but 
in  the  apparent  ease  and  readiness  of  its 
grace.  This  is  the  portrait  of  Romney's 
most  inspiring  model,  a half-length  of  Lady 
Hamilton  with  uplifted  arms,  reading  a 
Gazette.  Its  simplicity  of  beauty  dwells 
with  us,  and  from  the  artist  who  produced 

90 


ROMNEY  AND  LAWRENCE  91 


it  we  need  ask  scarcely  more.  Great  it  may 
not  be,  but  in  its  light  vein  it  is  charming, 
and  like  all  that  Romney  gives  us,  it  is 
without  offence. 

The  English  portrait  painter  who  suc- 
ceeded Romney  in  winning  the  suffrages 
of  the  fair  and  the  great,  had  against 
him  something  more  than  the  dis- 
advantage of  practising  in  a period  of 
tasteless  attire.  To  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence 
there  were  denied  the  finer  gifts  of  the 
colourist,  and  the  controlling  judgment 
which  preserved  Romney's  grace  and 
Reynold's  dignity.  Whether  compared  with 
these  men,  or  measured  on  his  own  merits, 
Lawrence  is  apt  to  seem  vulgar.  And 
looked  at  after  the  distinction  of  Gains- 
borough, he  is  revealed  as  meretricious. 


VIII 


RAEBURN  AND  ZOFFANY 

The  quality  of  Poetry  and  of  Style  of  which 
Romney,  with  his  occasional  lapses  and 
final  breakdown,  had,  after  all,  so  much, 
is  wanting  to  Raeburn,  whom  Scottish 
patriotism  or  clannishness  sets  generally  in 
a higher  place.  It  may  be  that  Raeburn 
never,  at  his  worst,  became  so  incompetent 
or  “ cheap  ''  as  the  gifted  but  too  sensitive 
painter  over  whom  Lady  Hamilton  cast  a 
spell.  Raeburn,  at  his  worst,  was  dull  and 
harsh,  rather  than  actually  feeble ; but 
does  his  best  compare — at  all  events, 
does  it  compare  in  attractiveness — with 
Romney's  finest  performance  ? Yet  he  is 
admirably  sterling.  Eighty  years  have 
passed  since  the  Scottish  portrait  painter 
of  Edinburgh's  great  period  touched  his 
last  canvas,  and  the  studio  in  York  Place 
was  closed.  Long  before  that,  Sir  Henry 

92 


RAEBURN  AND  ZOFFANY  93 


Raeburn  had  set  down,  with  his  accustomed 
firmness,  in  a portrait  now  belonging  to 
Lady  Burdett-Coutts,  the  features  and 
expression,  the  blond  colouring,  the  balanced 
yet  imaginative  head  of  the  master  of 
Scottish  Romance.  So  sober  and  certain  is 
the  handiwork,  so  complete  the  chronicle  of 
character,  that  the  picture  deserves  study. 
In  this  case  Nature  fortunately  endowed 
the  painter  with  a great  human  subject,  and 
one  that  he  had  brains  enough  to  under- 
stand, and  dexterity  enough  to  depict. 
Nothing  is  here  wanting — the  charm  that 
was  before  him  very  clearly  was  the  charm 
Raeburn  was  able  to  convey. 

Zoffany — to  go  back  a little  from  the  first 
quarter  of  the  Nineteenth  to  the  third 
quarter  of  the  Eighteenth  Century — was 
accustomed  to  see  the  subjects  of  his 
portraiture  in  a manner  that  strikes 
the  spectator  as  more  imaginative  than 
Raeburn’s  ; but  that  is  in  part  because 
his  portraiture  most  frequently  dealt  with 
theatrical  people,  of  a native  or  an 
acquired  mobility  of  expression,  and 
dealt  with  most  of  them  as  they  were 
perceived  in  the  simulated  excitement  of 


94  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


a dramatic  performance.  His  pictures 
cannot  all  vie  in  vividness  and  power  of 
illusion  with  his  famous  “ Garrick  as  Abel 
Drugger  ” ; but  many  represent,  with  as 
much  of  naturalness  as  the  record  of  the 
scene  demands,  an  actor  playing  a part. 
The  works  are  interesting  by  their  measure 
of  vividness,  and  also,  as  Hogarth  would 
himself  have  made  them,  by  their  pleasant 
and  observant  realisation  of  the  interiors 
they  profess  to  depict.  Attention  to  the 
“ still-life  ” of  a subject,  to  the  form,  and 
hue,  and  light  and  shade  of  furniture 
and  accessories,  denotes  a lesson  learnt 
thoroughly  from  the  most  skilled  Dutchmen 
of  a preceding  time  ; and,  as  the  landscape 
painters  of  our  Eastern  counties — those 
especially  who  were  least  imaginative,  and 
who  counted  least  upon  the  value  of  ele- 
gance and  formal  grace — learnt  much  from 
Hobbema  and  Wynants,  so  did  the  Genre 
and  portrait  painters  of  perhaps  one  genera- 
tion before  them,  profit  by  the  serene  and 
ordered  art  with  which  Metsu  disposed  an 
interior,  and  De  Hooch  or  Ostade  governed 
for  their  ends  the  flush  of  colour  and  the 
accident  of  light. 


IX 

RUSKIN 

Some  people  have  said,  since  Ruskin’s 
death,  “ He  was  not  a great  Critic.”  There 
is  an  inexactness  in  their  thought.  Ruskin 
was  a very  great  critic,  though  he  was  not 
a perfect  one.  He  spotted  weak  places,  and 
he  exposed  them  fearlessly  ; and  to  do  that 
— though  not  to  do  it  as  your  principal 
business — is  one  of  the  conditions  of  the 
criticism  that  is  great.  The  honeyed 
utterance,  the  suave  and  genial  vision, 
perform  but  half  of  the  task.  Again, 
the  capacity  of  Ruskin  is  attested  by  the 
illumination  he  shed  upon  much  noble  work 
he  was  the  first  to  appreciate.  It  is  easy 
to  say,  in  regard  to  any  particular  genius  in 
Pictorial  Art,  in  Sculpture,  in  Poetry,  or 
in  Prose  Fiction,  and  to  his  advocate — 
whoever  that  may  be — in  Criticism,  “ Oh, 
if  So-and-So  had  never  written,  that  man 
8— (2314)  95 


96  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


would  have  been  appreciated  all  the 
same  ! ” Would  he  ? Not  quite  “ the 

same ; ” although  in  time  he  would 
doubtless  have  been  valued. 

And  further,  in  support  of  the  assertion 
that  Ruskin  was  no  great  critic,  it  has  been 
said  to  me — it  has  been  said  in  the  street — 
that  if  you  asked  painters  whether  he  was 
a critic  of  Painting,  they  would  say  “ No  : 
he  was  perhaps  a critic  of  Architecture  ” ; 
and  if  you  asked  architects  whether  he  was 
a critic  of  Architecture,  they  would  say 
“ No  : but  perhaps  he  was  a critic  of 

Painting.”  But  one  does  not  ask  painters, 
charged  of  necessity  with  the  prejudices  of 
the  particular  studio — the  School  in  which 
they  learnt,  or  the  School  they  have 
founded — one  does  not  put  to  them,  but 
rather  to  men  of  the  world,  detached, 
instructed  and  impartial,  the  suggested 
query.  It  is  much  the  same  with  architects 
— except  that  their  art,  like  surgery,  involves 
a more  special  knowledge.  But,  even 
accepting  for  the  moment  what  finally  one 
rejects — the  craftsman's  pretension  to  be 
the  judge  without  appeal,  as  to  who  is  the 
real  critic  of  his  particular  craft — I have 


RUSKIN 


97 


had  to  reply,  “ The  painter  may  not  say, 
perhaps,  that  Ruskin  knew  much  about 
Painting.  The  architect  may  not  say  he 
knew  much  about  Architecture.  I waive 
the  point,  for  the  moment.  But  you  will 
not  find  the  Writer  who  shall  tell  you  that 
Ruskin  knew  little  about  Writing.”  A 
great  master  in  Literature — that  he  is, 
in  any  case ; although  in  Criticism  he  had 
extraordinary  limitations,  and  absolutely 
feminine  perversities. 

As  to  the  subjects  in  the  exposition  of 
which  Ruskin  exercised,  or  could  exercise, 
his  mastery,  it  may  be  that  for  the  genius 
he  was — for  the  thinker,  the  poet,  the 
artist  in  Writing — they  were,  for  all  their 
apparent  range,  in  truth  somewhat  bounded. 
Had  there  not  been  beautiful  Painting  of 
the  kind  he  could  understand,  and  noble 
Architecture,  and  yet  more,  a lovely  and 
ever- varied  world  of  Nature  it  was  his 
delight  to  study  and  expound — and 
upon  which  it  was  his  especial  function, 
in  the  phrase  of  Browning,  to  “ put  colour, 
poetising  ” — Ruskin  would  have  been  with- 
out his  material ; his  ingenuity  in  his  own 
craft  unstimulated,  his  very  impulse  absent 


98  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


and  withdrawn.  For,  many  of  the  themes, 
much  of  the  material  that  engages  habitu- 
ally the  artist  in  Literature,  were  not 
material  for  Ruskin.  And  what  I dare  to 
call  the  richest  fields  of  the  imaginative 
writer,  it  was  not  for  him  to  till.  He  loved 
outward  incident,  romantic  adventure — 
witness  his  appreciation  of  Scott — but  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  could  ever 
have  created  what  he  admired.  Indeed, 
actual  creation — whether  of  incident  or 
character — was  not  his  gift  at  all.  A few 
poems,  and  “ The  King  of  the  Golden 
River  ” — an  allegory  graceful  perhaps,  but 
hardly  remarkable — and  there,  with  his 
youth  still  upon  him,  was  an  end  of  the 
work  that  even  endeavoured  to  be  creative. 

And  then,  again,  allegory,  outward  inci- 
dent, romantic  adventure — not  one  of  them, 
surely,  is  the  “ richest  field,”  I spoke  about. 
That  “ richest  field  ” of  the  imaginative 
writer,  is  human  character,  human  emotion. 
And  what  indication  is  there  that  with 
subtlety,  in  the  complex,  necessary  way, 
Ruskin  understood  that  ? To  understand 
that,  requires  four  things — Reading,  Obser- 
vation, Intuition,  Life.  When  Ruskin  laid 


RUSKIN 


99 


aside  creative  work  altogether,  what  time 
had  he  had  for  Observation  and  Life  ? Of 
Reading — the  least  important  of  the  things 
that  I have  named — he  had  about  as  much 
as  have  most  educated  people.  About  as 
much  ; no  more.  Of  Intuition — the  Divine, 
the  spiritual  gift,  which  yet  of  itself  comes 
partly  of  experience,  or  comes  never  fully 
without  it — of  dramatic  Intuition,  of  the 
sense  of  how,  in  a given  crisis,  this  man, 
that  woman,  would  behave — of  all  that, 
had  he  even  a trace  ? We  have  no  reason 
to  think  it. 

Well  then,  the  class  of  theme  was  limited 
— and  I have  said  what  it  was — which 
presented  itself  to  Ruskin  as  material  on 
which  could  be  exercised  his  mastery  of 
his  art  of  expression.  That  being  allowed, 
of  the  capacity  of  what  instrument  in  the 
whole  great  orchestra  of  literary  effect,  was 
he,  one  wonders,  ignorant  ? For  myself, 
I remember  none.  The  instrument  of  irony 
he  commanded  as  completely  as  the  instru- 
ment of  tenderness.  He  could  be  playful ; 
he  could  be  indignant  ; he  could  be  properly 
bitter.  He  could  be  sweet  and  honeyed 
indeed ; his  paths  could  drop  fatness. 


100  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Beauty,  force,  intricate  ornament,  splendid 
directness — they  were  all  alike  his. 

One  wonders — any  worker  in  his  parti- 
cular art  of  Writing  has  reason  to  wonder 
and  ask — Was  this  mastery  obtained  with 
ease,  or  reached  for  with  difficulty  ? In 
the  act  of  writing  — apart  from  the 
time  involved,  in  lowest  computation, 
for  the  quickest  production  of  so  many 
volumes,  so  many  million  words — was  there 
a burning  of  the  midnight  oil,  a tearing  of 
himself  to  pieces,  a prolonged  and  obstinate, 
fatiguing  wrestle  with  the  difficulties  of  his 
appointed  task  ? At  times  of  course  there 
must  have  been.  But  when  one  remembers 
how  great  is  the  bulk  of  Ruskin's  produc- 
tions, and  that  a working  life  not  short 
indeed,  but  not  unusually  long — for  three- 
and-twenty  saw  about  the  beginning  of  it, 
and  three-and-sixty  saw  what  we  may  call 
its  close — was  vouchsafed  to  the  artist,  and 
furthermore,  that  he  travelled  much,  drew 
much,  and  very  carefully,  studied  monu- 
ments in  situ , from  England  to  Italy,  one 
must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  on  the 
whole  the  work  was  done  rapidly,  done 
easily,  done  without  detrimental  effort. 


RUSKIN 


101 


except  the  effort  involved  (and  serious 
enough  indeed  !)  by  its  mere  bulk  and  mass. 
Besides,  in  reading  it — in  reading  especially 
the  very  early  volumes  and  the  very  late 
ones — fluency,  actual  fluency,  a thing  so 
different  from  the  not  less  admirable  sense 
of  ease  that  in  others  is  achieved  laboriously, 
seems  its  characteristic. 

I have  spoken  of  the  particular  fluency  of 
quite  early  works  and  quite  late  ones. 
Each  had  its  own  character.  The  first — 
of  which  the  first  volumes  of  “ Modern 
Painters”  afford  the  best  example — had  the 
exuberance  of  youth  ; youth  fanciful  and 
fertile,  irrepressible,  comparatively  unre- 
flecting. The  second — in  which  one  would 
name  the  best  things  in  “ Fors  Clavigera  ” 
and  “ Preterita  ” — had  something  of  the 
garrulousness  of  age  ; but  not  that  alone  ; 
the  garrulousness  had  not  gone  far  enough 
to  be  a fault ; in  it  there  was  something  of 
the  pure  ease  of  experience  ; it  was  liquid 
and  flowing  ; the  style  was  far  less  con- 
stantly ornamental ; it  was  better  in  so  far 
as  there  was  measure  and  restraint  in  the 
ornament ; but  I do  not  know  that  one 
can  say  of  it,  as  a whole,  that  the 


102  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


work  had  gained  in  balance — in  literary 
balance — in  perfection  of  proportions.  And 
as  regards  mental  balance — well ! it  had 
fads,  along  with  ripeness.  But  it  was  ex- 
quisitely personal — of  impeccable  candour, 
and  of  limpid  simplicity. 

The  charm  of  the  later  writing — so  differ- 
ent both  from  the  exuberance  of  the  earlier, 
and  the  measured  strength  and  gravity  of 
some  of  the  early-middle  period  (in  the 
“ Seven  Lamps  ” for  instance) — was,  so  far  at 
least  as  I can  tell  and  remember,  the  charm 
of  the  later  man  ; the  man  approaching 
old  age  ; claiming  some  of  its  privileges  ; 
exercising  its  rights  of  unfettered  affection 
towards  the  persons  and  objects  it  chose  ; 
chiding,  encouraging  ; asking  to  be  forgiven 
much,  and  much  indulged — asking  to  be 
accepted  implicitly. 

Only  twice  did  I see  Ruskin — I never 
knew  him.  Once  was  at  a lecture — his 
lecture  on  “ Snakes  ” — at  the  London 
Institution.  Once  was  at  a house  in  Prince 
of  Wales's  Terrace — it  was  Mrs.  Bishop's — 
where,  for  her  delight  and  that  of  her 
friends,  he  lectured  privately  ; and  charm- 
ing was  he  ; but  the  performance  was  less 


RUSKIN 


103 


admirable  and  complete  than  that  at  the 
London  Institution.  At  both  places,  what 
one  felt  about  him  was  that  he  was  benign 
and  bewitching  ; but  at  the  London  Institu- 
tion— perhaps  owing  in  part  to  the  greater 
urgency  of  his  theme  (it  was  a protest, 
indignant,  affectionate,  against  the  evils  of 
cramming) — at  the  London  Institution  he 
had  the  most  of  force  and  of  depth. 

I remember  well  his  arrival — the  door 
opening  at  the  bottom  of  the  theatre — and, 
with  William  Morris  I think,  and  certainly 
Leighton  and  other  friends,  and  patting 
Leighton  on  the  back  (or  was  it  William 
Morris  ?)  a little  nervously,  yet  bearing 
himself  bravely,  this  man  of  world-wide 
fame  and,  what  is  so  much  more 
impressive  and  important  to  those  who 
feel  it  at  all,  of  extraordinary  and  magnetic 
genius — this  genius  was  suddenly  amongst 
us.  And,  gravely  and  slowly,  with  a 
voice  at  once  of  good  quality,  and  with 
rough,  Cumbrian  burr,  Ruskin  began  his 
discourse.  All  listened  intently  ; and  as 
the  theme  developed,  and  his  interest  in  it 
grew,  and  as  he  felt — for  he  must  have 
felt — that  he  held  us  in  the  hollow  of  his 


104  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


hand,  the  fascination  increased,  and  the 
power  and  beauty  that  justified  it.  I have 
heard,  with  much  delight,  another  genius 
and  great  artist — Tennyson — read  several 
of  his  poems.  The  enjoyment  was  singular  ; 
the  experience  remarkable.  But,  in  the 
drawing-room  in  Manchester  Square,  the 
author  of  “ The  Revenge  ; a Ballad  of  the 
Fleet  ” — not  published  then,  but  posted  to 
the  Nineteenth  Century , that  very  night  I 
speak  of — reached  no  effect  that  was  quite 
so  much  of  an  enchantment,  as  did  John 
Ruskin,  with  the  voice  more  and  more 
wonderful  and  tender,  that  March  afternoon 
in  Finsbury. 


X 


CONSTABLE’S  “ ENGLISH 
LANDSCAPE  ” 

Three  times,  at  least,  in  the  history  of 
Landscape  Art,  has  some  great  painter  kept, 
in  Black  and  White,  voluminous  record  of 
his  achievement.  Not  to  speak  of  a more 
limited,  though  still  a beautiful,  undertaking 
of  Cotman’s — a series  of  soft  ground  Etch- 
ings, very  little  known — there  is  the  “ Liber 
Veritatis  ” of  Claude,  the  “ Liber  Studio- 
rum  ” of  Turner,  and  the  “ English  Land- 
scape ” of  Constable.  It  is  the  object  of 
the  present  Essay  to  study  a little  the 
circumstances  and  the  character  of  the  last 
of  the  three.  Collectors  have  of  late 
recognised  it ; connoisseurs  are  en  train  to 
appraise  it  at  its  proper  value.  Its  gospel 
is  preached.  But  before  I go  further  into 
its  history,  it  may  be  well  to  remind  people 
of  what  most  obviously  and  effectively 

105 


106  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


marks  it  off  from  the  performances  with 
which  I have  for  the  moment  associated  it. 

And,  first,  when  I said  “ voluminous 
record  ” of  a painter's  achievements,  that 
was  a phrase  which  properly  expressed  only 
the  performance  of  Claude.  Claude's 
“ Liber  Veritatis  " exists  for  us,  as  Turner's 
“ Liber  " and  as  Constable's  “ Landscape  " 
does,  in  the  form  of  work  engraved  and 
printed  ; the  engraver's  task,  in  the  case 
of  Claude,  undertaken  rather  more  than  a 
hundred  years  ago  by  Earlom,  prolific  and 
able — but  to  the  eye  of  Claude,  we  have 
to  remember,  his  “ Liber  " existed  only  in 
the  form  in  which  he  himself  had  wrought 
it — drawings  with  the  pen,  and  drawings 
with  summary  or  delicate  washes — the 
things,  priceless  and  masterly,  on  their 
limited  lines,  that  we  see  at  Chatsworth. 
They  were  done  for  a record.  They  were 
done  for  himself. 

A record  in  another  sense,  one  executed 
for  quite  another  object  than  the  making  of 
a series  of  memoranda  of  his  painted  work, 
was  Turner’s  “ Liber."  Turner  desired 
broadly,  not  for  himself  but  for  the  world — 
at  all  events  the  world  of  the  Collector — a 


CONSTABLE'S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 107 


representation  of  the  spirit,  the  character, 
and  above  all,  the  range,  of  his  work.  The 
“ Liber  Studiorum  ” was  to  illustrate  every 
mood  that  had  stirred  him,  and  every 
branch  of  Art  into  which  his  activity  had 
strayed.  And  the  foundation  of  each  piece 
in  that  stupendous  series  was  never,  or  was 
hardly  ever,  a painted  picture,  existing 
already  when  Turner  decided  that  its  theme 
should  be  the  theme  of  a plate.  Rather,  he 
chose  a theme  ; then,  made,  as  guidance 
to  himself  and  to  whatever  engraver  should 
co-operate  with  him  in  engraving  that  plate 
— it  might  be  Dunkarton,  it  might  be 
Lupton,  it  might  be  Charles  Turner,  or  some 
other — he  made,  I say,  a sepia  sketch  of 
that  plate’s  obvious  subject ; and  this 
sketch  was  a preparation,  a weapon,  a 
means  to  an  end.  Such  are,  and  such  only 
are,  the  sepia  drawings  still  sometimes 
ignorantly  spoken  of  as  the  “ originals  ” of 
the  “Liber  Studiorum.”  “Originals!  ” — 
they  have  no  such  dignity.  The  completed 
plate  is  the  original,  or  the  print,  if  you 
like — the  plate  revised,  corrected,  perfected 
with  care.  The  drawing  was  but  “ mate- 
rial.” The  plate,  the  print,  was  to  be  all 


108  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


in  all — that  was  the  raison  d'etre  of  the 
labour. 

The  same  spirit  actuated  Constable  in 
planning  his  “ English  Landscape” ; though 
there  was  a difference  in  the  method. 
Unlike  Turner,  he  made  no  black  and  white 
drawing.  Constable  was  content  to  find 
the  basis  of  each  plate  to  be  executed,  in 
either  an  “ important  ” canvas  or  a small, 
vivid  oil  study — in  something  done  already, 
of  which  he  approved.  That,  the  engraver 
was  to  translate  ; or,  as  I hold  strongly, 
by  that  he  was  to  be  inspired.  From  a 
study  of  that  would  arise  something^ 
translation  partly,  partly  creation  too  ; it 
must  be  beautiful  in  itself,  beautiful  for 
itself  : the  spirit  of  Constable  must  be  in 
it,  and  the  dexterous  hand  of  Lucas  (the 
only  engraver  employed)  ; and  by  the  time 
it  was  found  to  be  beautiful,  or  by  the  time 
it  was  deemed  satisfactory  from  the  point 
of  view  of  Constable  (who  made  no  sine 
qua  non  of  verbal  fidelity,  so  to  say,  to 
himself),  it  was,  in  some  measure,  a thing 
independent  and  apart — a thing  not  to  be 
blamed  or  declared  faulty  by  reason  of  now 
obvious  non-adherence  to  that  previously 


CONSTABLE’S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 109 


existing  work  of  Constable’s  which  had 
supplied  the  foundation  for  the  print  reared 
but  in  part  by  its  aid. 

To  continue  a little  the  comparison  of 
the  “ English  Landscape  ” with  the 
“ Liber  ” of  Turner,  let  me  say  that  it 
consisted  of  two  and  twenty  plates — 
Turner’s  were  seventy-one.  It  is  true, 
however,  that,  allied  with  the  " Land- 
scape,” and  akin  to  it,  is  a group  of  a few 
pieces  which  it  was  once  intended  to 
include.  But  against  these,  in  Constable, 
must  be  set,  on  Turner’s  side,  those  mostly 
unfinished,  always  unpublished,  “ Liber  ” 
plates  which,  had  they  been  issued,  would 
have  swollen  the  number  of  that  publication 
fully  half-way  between  the  seventy-one  that 
it  reached  and  the  hundred  it  was  intended 
to  reach.  The  question  of  numbers  may 
not  seem  at  first  sight  important — its 
bearing  will  be  appreciated  directly  we 
consider  the  aim  of  the  two  works.  Each, 
it  is  true,  was  to  express  the  range  of  the 
master  it  illustrated.  The  range  of  Turner 
was  limitless — not  indeed  his  success.  There 
is  History  in  the  “ Liber  ” ; there  is  Mytho- 
logy in  it ; there  is  Architecture,  for  its  own 


110  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


sake  ; there  are  Marine  pieces  ; there  is 
Classic  Landscape,  built  on  the  lines  of 
Claude  and  Poussin ; there  is  homely 
landscape,  such  as  might  have  commended 
itself  to  Gainsborough  or  Morland  ; there 
is  the  more  romantic — no,  I should  say, 
the  more  dramatic — vision,  in  which  the 
creator  of  the  picture  deals,  in  his  own 
new  way,  with  mountain  and  storm. 
“ English  Landscape  ” — the  very  title 
reminds  one — has  no  such  different  enter- 
prises. Certainly  it  was  to  record  what 
Constable  painted.  But  what  did  Constable 
paint  but  the  England  of  every  day — the 
coast  as  well  as  the  field,  the  woods  and 
table  land,  the  Downs  and  heath,  the 
cottage  and  church  tower — the  England 
over  which  there  swept  for  him  such 
changeful  skies  as  no  one  but  himself  had 
ever  fully  understood — had  ever  half  as 
faithfully  and  subtly  chronicled  ? 

The  charm  of  Constable's  art,  its 
truth  and  its  impressiveness,  is  in- 
dependent of  colour.  The  black  and 
white  of  the  engraver — black  and  white, 
so  called,  but  really  every  note  of  brown,  of 
grey,  of  silver,  that  lies  between  them — 


CONSTABLE'S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 111 


was,  therefore,  far  more  than  in  Turner's 
case,  a sufficient  medium  to  convey  it. 
Moreover,  although  in  the  “ Liber " the 
effect  is  broad,  it  is  not  broader  than 
the  effect  in  the  “ Landscape  " ; yet — 
it  has  not,  I think,  been  sufficiently 
declared — Lucas's  engraving  has  subtleties 
and  delicacies,  extraordinary  gradations 
(for  all  its  brute  strength),  scarcely 
within  the  means  of  all  at  least  of 
those  various  and  unequal  craftsmen  who 
were  pressed  into  the  service  of  Turner. 

When  Constable  was  sending  out  the 
preface  to  his  collection  of  prints,  this  is 
what  he  said  : “ The  author  rests  in  the 
belief  that  the  present  collection  of  prints 
of  Rural  Landscape  may  not  be  wholly 
unworthy  of  attention.  He  had  imagined 
to  himself  an  object  in  Art,  and  has  always 
pursued  it.  Much  of  the  landscape  forming 
the  subject  of  these  plates,  going  far  to 
embody  his  ideas  " — and  then  he  paid  a 
pretty  compliment  to  the  skill  or  genius  of 
the  engraver — “ he  has  been  tempted  to 
publish  them."  A little  further,  “ The  aim 
of  the  publication,"  Constable  said,  “is  to 
increase  the  interest  in  rural  England  : its 

9 — (2314) 


112  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


professional  purpose  ” — he  meant  its 
artistic  purpose,  which  is  the  only  one  he 
need  have  talked  about — “ to  mark  the 
influence  of  light  and  shadow  upon  land- 
scape/’ He  sought  to  give  “ a lasting  and 
sober  existence  to  one  brief  moment, 
4 caught  from  fleeting  Time.’  ” 

Constable  is  not  so  much  the  historian 
of  the  durable,  as  the  recorder  of  the 
evanescent.  He  depicts  scenes,  and  charm- 
ing scenes  ; places,  interesting  places  ; but 
what  is  expressed  most  in  his  pictures, 
as  certainly  it  is  expressed  most  in  David 
Lucas’s  prints,  is  the  infinite  delight — the 
infinite  nuisance,  also,  I suppose — of  various 
weather. 

To  mark,  as  it  were,  the  homeliness,  the 
domesticity  of  his  enterprise,  as  compared 
with  his  rival’s  cosmopolitan  range, 
Constable  placed,  as  the  first  print  in  the 
series  of  “ English  Landscape,”  a vision, 
accurate  I doubt  not,  but  likewise  humbly 
picturesque,  of  the  small  Georgian  country 
house  in  which  he  was  born.  The  house 
“ of  Golding  Constable,  Esq.” — his  “ pater- 
nal house.”  A certain  quiet  dignity  must 
have  been  about  the  house  itself.  “ Light, 


CONSTABLE'S  “LANDSCAPE”  113 


shade,  and  perspective,”  Constable’s  famous 
remedies  for  redeeming  the  “ ugliness  ” of 
the  object,  be  the  object  what  it  might ; 
“ light,  shade,  and  perspective  ” were,  in 
picture  or  print,  to  make  it  beautiful. 
“ Spring  ” was  the  second  piece — Spring 
which  we  hate  in  London,  with  the  east 
wind  blowing  grey  and  grimy  from  over 
Stepney  and  Whitechapel,  but  which 
presents  itself,  no  doubt,  on  Suffolk  uplands, 
still  as  a cheerful  season  to  the  country 
labourer,  to  the  farm  boy  at  the  plough. 
A great  table  land,  a wide  horizon,  and  the 
passing  of  clouds — that  is  the  painter’s  and 
engraver’s  theme.  “ Autumnal  Sunset,” 
not  one  of  the  best  pieces  by  any  means, 
was  the  third  of  the  set.  “ Noon,”  with 
its  high  field  brilliantly  illuminated,  its 
distance  of  flat  farmland  in  placid  mono- 
tony, a telling  contrast  to  the  changeful 
pageant  of  the  sky  that  is  above  and  behind 
it,  is  the  fourth.  I am  not  completing  the 
list  ; but  a “ Summer  Morning,”  radiant, 
serene,  comes  a little  later  ; later  still,  two 
visions  of  heath — and  both  are  Hampstead, 
when,  as  yet,  Hampstead  was  not  suburban, 
but  rural — and  then  a breezy  sea,  beheld 


114  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


from  Brighton  beach  ; the  curve  of  Wey- 
mouth Bay  under  a raging  sky  ; “ Old 

Sarum,”  lonely,  solemn,  and  austere ; a 
“ Lock  on  the  Stour/’  and  the  daily  life 
of  the  everyday  English  land.  The  nature 
of  the  compositions,  this  little  summary 
sufficiently  indicates.  Besides,  as  I said 
earlier,  the  Series  covers  the  ground  that 
the  mind  and  the  brush  of  the  artist  were 
accustomed  to  traverse. 

The  publication,  as  a whole,  is  dated  1833- 
But  each  plate  is  dated  separately,  and  it 
was  in  1829  that  the  work  was  begun — and 
really  begun  with  the  “ Hampstead  Heath 
Vignette,”  which,  in  the  lists  of  the  Series, 
occupies  a later  place.  Like  the  “ Liber  ” 
of  Turner,  the  "English  Landscape”  was 
put  forth  in  parts — how  many  parts  there 
were  to  be  was  not  settled  at  the  beginning  ; 
and  though,  in  the  end,  the  “ run  of  the 
piece,”  if  one  may  so  put  it,  did  not  stop 
with  the  abruptness  of  the  “ Liber,”  it  was 
certainly  curtailed  by  (in  theatrical  parlance 
again)  the  “ frost  ” that  it  was  proving. 
Artistically,  as  every  competent  person 
would  allow,  now-a-days,  an  amazing 
success,  the  engravings  were  a failure 


CONSTABLE’S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 115 


commercially.  And  they  were  Constable’s 
speculation  ; though,  from  one  of  many 
letters  kindly  placed  in  my  hands  by  their 
possessor,  Mr.  H.  S.  Theobald,  it  is  evident 
that  Benoni  White  of  Brownlow  Street — 
publisher,  perhaps,  as  well  as  print-seller — 
had  been  approached,  unsuccessfully,  about 
dealing  in  the  prints.  They  were  actually 
published  by  Colnaghis,  of  Pall  Mall  East— 
the  very  house  that,  seventy  years  later,  I, 
for  my  own  small  part,  was  glad  to  be  able 
to  associate  with  the  issue  of  a little  volume 
devoted  to  their  history,  their  virtues,  and 
their  “ States.”  * But  the  Colnaghis  of 
that  remote  day  took,  we  may  be  sure,  no 
share  in  the  speculation  of  Constable’s. 
The  brunt  lay  on  the  painter,  and  expenses 
were  uncertain  and  constantly  growing ; 
and  Lucas,  the  engraver,  was  a genius,  but 
tiresome ; and  Constable  himself,  I am 
convinced,  though  careful  always,  timid 
too  often,  worried  much  more  than  he 
would  have  done  in  better  health  and 
younger  years,  not  only  about  the  cost,  but 
about  the  details  of  the  work.  Sometimes 

* “ Constable,  Lucas,  and  the  Prints  They  did 
between  Them,”  1904. 


116  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


he  did  not  know  his  own  mind  as  to 
the  changes  he  required  in  the  plates  ; for 
details  changed  were  changed  yet  again  ; 
and  “ my  dear  Lucas  ” had  to  be  remon- 
strated with,  on  some  occasions,  a little 
unduly.  “ Those  devils  the  printers/’  too, 
did  not  contribute  to  Constable’s  happiness. 
Bitter  complaint  is  made,  in  the  letters,  of 
a certain  “ Rhodes.”  “ Even  Rhodes  ” — 
as  if  better  things  might  have  been  expected 
of  that  worthy. 

As  to  Lucas’s  plates,  Constable  liked  the 
earlier  ones  better  than  the  later  ; but,  in 
doing  so,  had  only,  I think,  some  measure 
of  reason  on  his  side — for  in  the  later 
pieces  the  inferiority  was  but  occasional. 
The  truth  is,  Constable  was  getting  tired 
of  the  affair.  He  did  not  conceal  his 
irritation.  If  a proof  arrived,  with  which 
he  was  not  satisfied,  it  spoilt  his  evening — 
an  evening  he  had  proposed  to  enjoy  with 
friends — and  he  did  not  leave  David  Lucas 
in  ignorance  of  the  circumstance.  Then, 
as  to  delays  and  difficulties,  “ Let  me  see 
and  hear  of  these  matters  as  little  as 
possible.”  Then,  when  in  a hurry,  some 
communication  with  Mr.  Lucas  is  necessary. 


CONSTABLE’S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 117 


a despatch  is  sent  “ To  Mr.  Lucas,  27  in 
some  street  in  Chelsea,  but  the  Devil  only 
knows  where.”  It  seems,  however,  that 
the  postman  also  knew  where,  ” for 
Mr.  Lucas  received  the  letter.  Fortun- 
ately, one  remembers,  it  was  the  little 
Chelsea  of  that  day — the  Chelsea  of 
William  the  Fourth — and  not  the  Chelsea 
of  Lord  Cadogan’s  extensions  and  improve- 
ments. “ 27  in  some  street  in  Chelsea,  but 
the  Devil  only  knows  where.”  How  sick 
was  Constable  of  the  whole  affair,  by  that 
time  ! 

About  the  troubles  of  the  publication,  and 
the  friction  over  it,  what  need  to  gossip 
further  ? Rather  let  us  concentrate  our 
attention,  in  the  space  that  is  left,  upon  a 
couple  of  matters  ; one  personal,  the  other 
both  artistic  and  practical — let  us  get  at 
some  less  slight  understanding  of  Lucas  and 
his  position  : let  us  see  also  in  what  stage 
of  these  prints’  progress  and  issue  it  is  most 
desirable  to  study  or  possess  them.  And 
the  matter  I have  mentioned  in  the  second 
place  is  that  which  I will  speak  of  in  the 
first. 

The  First  Published  States  of  the 


118  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


“English  Landscape”  series — “Open  Letter 
proofs  ” they  have  been  called  generally, 
but  of  course  they  are  in  no  real  sense 
“ proofs  ” at  all — represent,  as  regards 
their  main  features,  as  regards  above  all  the 
inclusion  or  the  exclusion  of  this  or  that 
detail,  as  to  the  character  or  presence  of 
which  it  had  been  question  in  earlier  stages 
of  the  work  than  the  published  one,  the 
prints  as  Constable  would  have  had  them 
to  be. 

But  there  is  one  qualification  to  be  made 
to  this  statement,  and  that  removes  much 
of  its  importance.  It  is  not  to  be  taken 
by  itself.  Even  if  we  are  ready  to  grant 
that  in  the  vital  matter  of  the  printing,  as 
much  care  was  exercised  in  the  large 
published  issue  as  in  the  preparation  of 
trial  proofs  for  Constable’s  eye,  it  is  certain 
that  in  the  case  of  the  “ English  Land- 
scape ” so  many  proofs  were  “ pulled,’’  so 
many  changes  made,  that  there  was  some 
amount — it  is  in  the  various  pieces  a very 
various  amount — of  deterioration  in  the 
plates  by  the  time  the  published  state  was 
reached.  In  all  Mezzotint  Engraving  a 
certain  freshness,  a certain  opulence  of 


CONSTABLE'S  “ LANDSCAPE  " 119 


colour,  goes,  as  the  printing  proceeds  ; and 
the  deterioration  begins  very  early  ; and 
the  work  of  one  engraver  deteriorates  more 
quickly  than  that  of  another.  Collectors 
of  the  prints  after  Sir  Joshua  will  tell  us 
that ; and  will  instance  Dean  and  John 
Jones  as  men  whose  charming  work  has 
little  durability.  If  Lucas's  went,  as 
it  did,  very  soon,  in  the  case  of  the 
Constable  landscapes,  that  is  a tribute 
to  the  delicacy  of  the  labour — Turner's  own 
went  very  soon,  in  the  “ Liber  Studiorum," 
and  no  plates  in  that  series  are  more 
beautiful,  more  ethereal,  than  are  several  of 
the  ten  which  Turner  himself  engraved.  The 
“ Inverary  Pier,  Loch  Fyne,  Morning,"  is  an 
instance  of  this  quick  deterioration  : the 
“ Severn  and  Wye  " is  a yet  more  conspicu- 
ous instance  of  it.  Their  skies  are  of  the 
daintiest,  lightest,  most  refined  touch — 
and  in  the  prints  by  David  Lucas  piece 
after  piece  depends  for  its  fine  charm 
upon  the  intactness  of  the  sky.  Only, 
speaking  generally,  I would  ask  that  this 
should  be  remembered — that  somehow  the 
more  serious  deterioration  of  the  “ Liber  " 
prints  begins,  not  at  the  end  of  the 


120  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Proof  State  at  all,  but  appreciably 
later  ; and,  again,  that  no  sooner  is  this 
very  marked  deterioration  declared  than 
Turner  himself — repairer  habitually  of  the 
part,  though  only  exceptionally  first  en- 
graver of  the  whole — sets  about  to  mend 
matters. 

The  thing  being  as  it  is — and  the  first 
deteriorations  of  moment  occurring  sur- 
prisingly soon,  in  Lucas's  case — it  is 
desirable  to  see  these  Constable  prints,  and 
to  possess  them,  in  their  later  Trial  Proof 
stage.  Then  they  ought  to  be  perfect. 
But  there  is  to  boot  a curious  interest  for 
the  lover  of  the  fine  fleur  of  technique — for 
one  who  enjoys  in  a mezzotint  that  massive 
effect  which  comes  so  early  and  so  early 
departs — in  those  Trial  Proofs  even  that 
are  not  late  at  all.  A working  proof  has 
this  interest  ; a finished  proof  has  another. 
But  the  working  proof,  though  it  may  have 
perchance  a pencil  note  of  Constable's  in 
the  margin,  ought  not  to  be  drawn  upon 
and  smeared  with  body  colour.  Where  is 
the  fine  print  then  ? Desirable,  above  all, 
is  the  brilliant  Proof  that  has  not  so  been 
handled. 


CONSTABLE’S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 121 


And  First  States  I have  said  are  often 
admirable  ; and,  in  many  instances,  Second 
States,  with  re-letterings  executed  in  Con- 
stable’s day,  are  also  attractive  things, 
which  none  but  foolish  people  would  wholly 
and  under  all  circumstances  eschew.  Only, 
after  once  Constable  is  dead — after  once 
the  plate  itself  is  at  somebody  else’s  mercy 
— after  a publisher  has  bought  it,  who  knows 
nothing  about  delicacy,  and  has  bought, 
moreover,  a wreck — “ Eschew  it  alto- 
gether ” is  the  best  counsel  that  can  be 
given  to  the  lover,  not  of  great  names 
merely — great  names  disgraced  by  the  im- 
perfect, damaged  presentation  of  the  great 
men’s  efforts — but  of  beautiful  things. 

And  this  brings  me  back  to  Lucas. 
Outside  the  “ English  Landscape  ” series, 
as  we  know  it — the  series  we  have  now 
been  considering — Lucas  wrought,  after 
Constable,  other  plates,  fairly  numerous. 
Four  or  five  were  large  ones — of  which  it 
is  possible  that  the  large  “ Salisbury  ” is 
the  most  famous.  I cannot  believe  that 
the  appreciation  of  these  will  increase  in 
the  same  proportion  as  the  appreciation  of 
the  smaller.  But  by  “ the  smaller  ” I mean 


122  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


those  in  the  Set,  and  two  or  three  others — 
the  smaller  “ Salisbury/’  particularly  in 
the  rare,  fine  proofs  of  it — and  the  “ Wind- 
mill near  Brighton  ” — pieces  which  only 
accident  caused  not  to  be  included  with  the 
twenty-two  of  the  “ Landscape  ” ; and  I 
do  not  mean  (save  perhaps  for  one  or  two 
exceptions)  those  more  numerous  pieces 
which  Lucas  later  issued,  disastrously,  upon 
his  own  account — mistakenly  encouraged, 
as  I think,  to  do  so,  by  Constable’s  earliest 
biographer  and  faithful  friend,  Leslie. 

A last  word  for  David  Lucas — as  to  whom 
much  may  be  read  with  interest  in  Mr. 
Ernest  Leggatt’s  Catalogue  of  his  “complete 
works.”  An  amiable  being,  wonderfully 
gifted,  and,  as  Time  went  on,  increasingly 
feeble  and  uncontrolled — a being  half-artist 
and  half-craftsman  ; half-tradesman  too  ; 
affectionate,  untrustworthy — he  seems  not 
often,  save  in  the  case  of  Constable’s 
immortal  enterprise — for  immortal  I hold 
the  4 4 English  Landscape  ” to  be — to  have 
had  his  chance.  Was  it  the  man  or  the 
circumstances,  or  was  it  something  of  both  ? 
Anyhow,  for  years,  for  hardly  less  than  a 
generation  after  Constable  engaged  him, 


CONSTABLE’S  “ LANDSCAPE  ” 123 


did  this  master  of  Mezzotint  linger  unappre- 
ciated, and  for  the  most  part  unemployed, 
or  employed  but  in  work  that  gave  no  scope 
to  his  power.  The  year  before  Constable 
died — but  two  or  three  years  after  the 
“ Landscape  ” Series  proper  was  finished — 
Lucas  engraved,  with  just  as  complete  a 
grasp  of  another  artist’s  manner,  the 
“ Return  to  Port,  Honfleur,”  after  the 
French  Romantic,  Eugene  Isabey.  A rare 
and  excellent  work.  A few  other  things 
Lucas  did — one  or  two  “ important,”  skilful, 
very  impersonal  portraits,  and  two  or  three 
small  pieces  wrought  with  delicacy,  pre- 
cision, strength  ; but  soon  he  had  had  his 
day — his  work  was  over,  his  opportunity 
lost. 

S.  W.  Reynolds — almost  the  last  of  the 
engravers  of  Mezzotint  of  the  great  old 
school — formed,  my  reader  may  remember, 
or  may  like  to  be  told,  two  brilliant  pupils. 
One  of  them  was  Samuel  Cousins ; the 
other,  David  Lucas.  The  differing  fates  of 
the  Idle  and  Industrious  Apprentice,  in 
Hogarth’s  pictorial  narrative,  were  not 
really  more  different  than  the  fates  of  these 
two  artists.  Neither  was  cut  off  early  ; 


124  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


but  one  of  them — Cousins — lived  to  an 
extreme  old  age — diligent  in  labour,  puncti- 
lious in  performance  ; rich,  an  Academician, 
honoured,  caressed — and  the  other,  dying 
elderly,  died  disappointed,  “ gone  under.” 
A workhouse  sheltered  Lucas's  last  hours  ; 
and  the  irregular,  erratic,  indefensible  man 
of  genius,  had  rest,  after  weary  years,  in  a 
pauper's  grave. 


XI 


ETTY 

Enjoying  a great  inheritance  from  the 
Venetians  and  a little  legacy  from  Boucher, 
there  lived  and  practised  William  Etty,  of 
whom  an  exquisite  example — which  is  a 
finished  preparation,  it  would  seem,  for 
work  intended  once  for  the  Summer-house 
at  Buckingham  Palace — decorated  with  its 
lovely  line  and  faultless  hue  the  wall  on 
which  it  hung  at  Burlington  House  in  the 
winter  of  1891.  This  is  a scene  from  the 
most  pictorial  of  Seventeenth  Century 
poems — Milton's  “ Comus.”  It  puts  before 
the  spectator  the  “ daughters  three,"  who — 
“ Sing  about  the  golden  tree.” 

And  never  was  garden  of  the  Hesperides 
more  finely  realised.  Etty — notwithstand- 
ing his  often  loose  and  occasionally  inaccu- 
rate draughtsmanship — is  sometimes  seen 
at  his  best  in  the  larger  and  simpler  of  his 

125 


126  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


studies  from  the  Nude.  They  reveal  the 
beauty  of  Nature  into  which  he  penetrated 
so  deeply,  and  that  beauty  of  his  own 
palette,  or  his  own  vision,  by  which  he  was 
enabled  to  place  Nature  in  her  finest  light. 
They  are  noble  and  luminous,  pearl-like, 
or  opalescent.  But  no  study  of  a single 
figure  can  hope  to  possess  the  intricate  and 
rhythmic  grace  of  contour,  the  varied  and 
subtle  contrasts  of  hue,  and  the  complete- 
ness of  learned  yet  facile  design  which  are 
presented  in  this  picture  of  wreathed  figures 
in  pale  golden  air.  A perfect  refinement, 
without  which  Milton  would  indeed  be 
maligned,  presides  over  the  treatment  of 
the  “ daughters  three  ” — blonde  and  brown 
and  Venetian  gold — to  whom,  under  the 
rosy  apple  boughs,  the  principal  place  is 
given. 


XII 

Large  water-colours 

“ In  any  Art  ” — it  has  been  laid  down  by 
one  who  spoke  at  all  events  with  such 
authority  as  comes  of  refined  practice — “ in 
any  Art  it  is  criminal  to  go  beyond  the 
means  used  in  its  exercise.”  The  words, 
spoken  of  the  instruments  of  the  Etcher, 
are  applicable  to  Water-Colour.  Water- 
Colour  Drawing,  though  it  has  no  reason 
to  be  petty,  has  no  permission  to  be  huge. 
Never,  any  more  than  Etching  itself,  has 
it  been  gigantic  in  scale,  in  the  hands  of 
its  finest  and  most  classical  practitioners. 
The  best  art  of  Turner  and  Girtin,  of 
Cotman,  Barret  and  Dewint,  took  heed  of 
the  limitations  imposed  by  the  delicacy  of 
the  material,  as  certainly  as  the  limitations 
of  dry-point  and  the  etching  needle  were 
observed  by  Rembrandt  and  by  Claude,  by 
Whistler  and  by  Mery  on. 
io— (2314)  127 


128  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Perhaps  it  may  be  the  habit  of  exhibiting 
in  a very  large  gallery,  that  tempts  some 
Water-Colour  painters  of  the  day  to  a scale 
so  inappropriate  as  the  scale  they  often  use. 
But  they  should  remember  that  the  future 
abiding  place  of  nearly  all  Water-Colours  is 
not  the  corridors  of  an  Hotel  de  Ville,  but 
rather  the  parlour  wall  or  the  portfolio  of 
the  collector.  Here  and  there,  of  course, 
these  large  drawings  justify  their  scale  by 
their  success ; but  it  is  very  rarely.  At  the 
best,  almost,  they  are  a tour  de  force— that 
being  accomplished  by  an  exceptional 
dexterity  which  oil  painting  would  achieve 
without  comment.  The  Sunflower — in  Mr. 
Browning's  poem — “ loses  a flower's  true 
graces,  for  the  grace  of  being  but  a foolish 
mimic  sun."  And  Water-Colour,  idly  huge, 
abandons  charm,  yet  scarcely  attains  to 
force. 


XIII 

H.  G.  HINE 

It  must  have  been  in  the  early  ’Eighties, 
that,  walking  occasionally  up  those  heights 
of  Hampstead  and  of  Haverstock  Hill, 
on  which,  according  to  the  mot  of 
Whistler,  the  “ flock  ” of  Sir  James 
Linton  at  that  time  “ browsed,”  I was 
accustomed  to  behold  certainly  one  of  the 
veterans  of  the  sheep  of  that  sheep-fold — 
an  elderly  man,  strong  of  build,  ruddy  of 
countenance,  unobservant  of  mere  people, 
reflective,  trudging  along  the  highway, 
“ taking  the  air.”  His  head  was  large  ; he 
wore  a large,  loose  hat ; a large,  loose  coat ; 
he  stooped  considerably  ; he  was  beaten 
by  many  winds.  And  this  was  H.  G.  Hine 
— who,  when  I first  saw  him,  I remember, 
struck  me  as  a possible  skipper  of  a Channel 
coasting-boat — or  as  a possible  yeoman,  a 
prosperous  yeoman,  brought  to  the  suburbs 

129 


130  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


of  the  Town  by  the  interest  for  him  of  some 
Agricultural  Show. 

But  this  was  H.  G.  Hine — in  his  own 
special  subjects  one  of  the  most  exquisite 
craftsmen  in  the  Art  of  Water-Colour ; 
master  of  individual  and  yet  faithful  visions 
of  turquoise  or  opal  sky,  and  of  grey-gold 
or  of  embrowned-gold  turf  with  the  long 
restful  sweeps  and  subtle  curves  of  the  chalk 
land. 

An  admirer  of  his  Art  before  I knew  the 
man,  I came  to  know  the  man,  and  to  admire 
him  almost  as  much  as  his  Art.  A being 
of  perfect  rectitude,  of  absolute  simplicity  ; 
cordial,  not  gushing ; of  sturdy  good 
sense — one  who  had  taken  “ with  equal 
thanks  ” the  “ buffets  ” Fortune  dealt  him 
through  many  years  and  the  “rewards”  she 
meted  out  to  him  as  her  caprice  changed. 

But  this  is  very  conventional.  Why 
blame  Fortune  for  her  various  ways,  when 
it  was  Hine  who  varied  ? He  varied  in  this 
sense — that  for  twenty  or  thirty  years  of 
manhood  he  laboured  with  industry  upon 
this  or  that  subject-matter  there  was  no 
reason  to  suppose  could  ever  be  peculiarly 
his  own,  and  then,  casting  about  him 


H.  G.  HINE 


131 


for  an  inspiration,  a remedy,  a something 
that  should  allow  him  to  retrieve  the  error 
of  ineffective  days,  he  came  upon  a theme 
touched  by  a predecessor — Copley  Fielding 
— but  by  Copley  Fielding  never  exhausted, 
never  even  properly  fathomed — the  theme 
of  the  great  Down  country,  a land  so 
uneventful  to  the  commonplace — a land 
devoid  of  incidents,  wholly  devoid  of  pretti- 
ness— great  tracts  of  upland  pasturage,  the 
thin  sweet  herbage  of  chalk  lands  : swelling 
hills  that  the  light  rested  on,  and  that 
radiant  skies  paused  over  ; vast,  scooped 
out  “ Bottoms  ” filled  with  blue-grey 
shadow — “ Bible  Bottom,”  in  the  great 
drawing  of  “ The  Mailing  Hills,”  is  an 
example  in  Hine’s  Art ; and  “ White  Hawk 
Bottom,”  under  the  Brighton  Race  Course, 
is  known  in  fact,  and  should  be  known  by 
name,  to  everybody  who  has  ever  presented 
himself  at  the  Brighton  “ Spring  Meeting.” 
Hine  was  a Brightonian.  Somewhere  or 
other  I have  an  aquatint,  done  by  him  sixty 
years  ago,  that  shows — and  very  character- 
istically too — the  form  and  colour  of  the 
cliffs,  looking  from  the  Steine  towards 
Rottingdean.  But  when  he  did  that,  it 


132  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


had  never  occurred  to  him,  that  the  themes 
he  was,  in  his  Art  of  Water-Colour,  most 
finely  to  tackle,  were  themes  that  had  lain 
about  him  before  ever  he  thought  of  being 
a painter  at  alL  When  he  did  think  of 
being  a painter,  he  crossed  the  Channel — 
he  addressed  himself  to  Rouen.  And,  the 
public  not  responding  very  enthusiastically 
to  these  and  many  other  efforts,  he  became 
a comic  draughtsman — I believe  a purely 
comic  one,  never  getting  into  his  drawings 
for  Punch , as  Charles  Keene  got,  a genera- 
tion ago,  and  as  Raven-Hill  gets  to-day, 
suggestions,  economical  and  vivid,  of  the 
deep  interest  that  there  is  in  English  every- 
day Landscape.  No  : he  was  purely  comic. 
That,  perhaps,  may,  in  its  own  way,  for  its 
own  time,  have  succeeded.  But  when  one 
thing  failed  after  another,  Hine  bethought 
him— I remember  his  telling  me  so — of  the 
enfolding  Downs,  with  their  broad,  tranquil 
beauty  : the  shoulders  of  the  Downs,  and 

then  the  drop  in  them,  the  glades  and 
Bottoms,  the  obscure,  secluded  places 
where — 

“ Little,  lost  Down  churches  praise 
The  Lord  Who  made  the  hills." 


H.  G.  HINE 


133 


From  advanced  middle  age  to  very 
advanced  old  age — for  he  died  eleven  years 
ago,  at  eighty-three — Hine  went  on  pro- 
ducing, never  hastily,  never  restlessly,  those 
visions  of  the  land  of  which  he  was  a child  : 
the  vast  high  spaces,  open  to  the  heavens, 
in  the  calm  of  Afternoon : the  flock 

descends  the  hill-side  ; the  shepherd  drags 
himself — a shepherd's  walk  could  never 
possibly  be  rapid — the  shepherd  drags 
himself  after  them.  In  sheltered  Bottoms, 
there  are  farmsteads,  and  screens  of  great 
trees  ; but  high  up  on  the  Down,  only  a 
battered  thorn-tree  bends  away  from  the 
sea- wind  and  the  West. 

That  was  Hine's  material.  That  was 
the  wonderful  and  almost  elementary 
Nature  which  he — better  than  anybody 
else,  unless  in  a quite  different  fashion  it  was 
his  friend  and  rival,  Thomas  Collier — learnt 
to  express.  Like  Thomas  Collier,  he  was 
fond  of  getting  away  from  his  particular 
theme.  From  time  to  time,  other  subjects. 
But  in  these  self-enforced  departures — in 
this  trying  of  his  wings  for  fresh  flight — 
he  had  not,  as  a rule,  Collier's  success.  A 
Heath,  or  Moor,  or  Down  of  Collier's  may 


134  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


be  matched,  in  force  or  exquisiteness,  by 
his  treatment  of  a Sea.  Not  so  the  rolling 
hills  of  Hine.  Yet  when  he  left  his  special 
world,  Hine  did  not  fail  invariably — not 
even  invariably  at  such  times  was  his  work 
of  mediocrity.  Once  indeed,  the  painter 
of  elastic  turf  and  thin  and  sun-charged 
air,  conveyed,  quite  excellently,  the  char- 
acter of  semi-solid  fog — all  Ludgate  Hill 
calling  aloud,  as  it  were,  for  a woollen 
“ comforter.”  And  Hine  painted  tender 
moonlights. 

But  we  shall  remember  him  only  a little 
by  these  things — by  even  the  best  of  them. 
Hine's  place  in  English  Art  is  his  by  reason 
of  the  sure  appeal  of  drawings  that  record 
the  aspects,  now  solemn  and  now  radiant, 
of  the  bare,  golden  uplands,  on  which  is 
seen,  under  high  skies,  only  a shepherd's 
figure — on  which  is  heard  only  the  tinkling 
of  sheep-bells,  or  the  passage  of  the  Channel 
wind. 


XIV 


AN  ENDLESS  ROLL-CALL 

A “ Dictionary  of  Contributors  to  the 
Royal  Academy  ” has  been  compiled  by 
Mr.  Algernon  Graves,  from  careful  study  of 
all  the  catalogues  of  the  Academy,  from  its 
foundation  in  1769.  They  are  melancholy 
thoughts  that  the  book  suggests — at  least 
they  must  be,  to  the  practising  painter.  It 
is  difficult  to  say  how  many  entries  there 
are  in  it ; but,  astounding  as  it  may  seem,  I 
believe  they  would  be  found  to  include 
something  like  thirty  or  forty  thousand 
pictures.  And  we  are  carried  by  these  to 
the  letter  “ C ” only ; so  that,  if  the 
proportion  is  at  all  maintained  in  succeeding 
volumes,  something  like  half  a million 
pictures  will  be  found  to  have  been  shown 
at  the  Academy,  since  its  foundation. 
Melancholy  reflection  ! — when  one  remem- 
bers how  few  of  them  exist,  practically  ; 
how  few  are  recollected  to-day. 

135 


136  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


But  “ worse  remains  behind.”  For  how 
about  the  number  of  the  unaccepted  ones  ? 
To  say  they  reached  a million,  of  them- 
selves, would  be  within  the  mark, 
thoroughly. 

Yet  there  are  people  who  look  reverently 
at  any  picture,  as  a phenomenon — as  a 
rarity — as  a thing  of  importance . A picture 
is  probably  no  rarer  than  a dining-room 
chair. 


XV 


THE  FIELD  OF  THE  PRINT 
COLLECTOR 

The  frequenter  of  Picture  Exhibitions,  the 
lover  or  the  casual  observer  of  painted 
canvases,  has,  as  a rule,  no  idea  how  much 
of  the  finest  Art  it  is  not  necessary 
to  go  to  any  Exhibition  to  see.  He  ignores 
the  fact  that  amongst  the  men  of  most 
original  mind,  to  whom  great  pictorial 
conceptions  have  been  vouchsafed,  no 
small  proportion  have  expressed  themselves 
by  the  craft  of  Engraver  or  Etcher,  at  least 
as  adequately  as  with  the  brush  and  the 
palette.  He  ignores  his  own  privileges  as 
a possible  Collector  of  Prints. 

I am  met  by  the  exclamation,  “ But  a 
print  has  no  colour  ! ” Well,  I am  ready 
with  my  answer.  In  a strict  sense,  it  has 
no  colour — unless  it  be  one  of  the  inferior, 
trivial  things  that  a mere  drawing-room 
public  runs  after,  in  its  most  flippant  hours  ; 

137 


138  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


for  a superficial  sense  can  alone  be  satisfied 
with  the  compromises,  the  approximations, 
which  are  all  that  is  possible  to  the  Coloured 
Print  : the  spoilt  Morland,  the  enfeebled 
Wheatley,  the  sugary  Bartolozzi  meretri- 
cious and  elegant.  The  coloured  print  is 
well  described  as  “ neither  fish,  fowl,  nor 
good  red  herring.”  Do  not  let  us  imagine 
that  the  real  lover  of  colour  loves  the 
coloured  print.  As  well  believe  that  the 
musician,  versed  in  the  strains  of  Pales- 
trina, can  take  serious  pleasure  in  waiting 
on  the  uneventful  progress  of  a ballad- 
concert's  airs.  The  lover  of  colour  goes,  of 
course,  to  Titian  and  to  Turner,  to  Rubens 
and  to  Watteau,  to  Chardin  and  to  Etty, 
and  not  to  the  coloured  print. 

I said,  the  print — the  real  Fine  Print,  I 
mean— has  in  “ the  strict  sense  ” no  colour. 
I do  not  know  that  we  need  claim  colour 
for  it  in  any  sense  ; but  what  I meant  by 
the  “ strict  ” one  was  that  the  engraver  has 
a way  of  seeing  colour  and  talking  about 
colour,  and,  there  is  no  doubt,  of  believing 
that  colour  is  suggested  pretty  fully  by 
those  gradations  of  black  and  white,  in 
which  for  my  own  part,  I,  a lover  of  colour 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  13& 


— of  the  rose,  of  sunrise,  of  green  meadows, 
of  the  hues  of  cheek  and  hair — am  content 
to  see  only  “ tone,”  gradations  of  black  and 
white,  from  brilliant  illumination  to  obscure 
shadow.  In  the  fine  print,  Colour  I give 
up  frankly.  The  print  has  not  that,  but 
it  has,  or  may  have,  everything  else,  and 
everything  else  in  very  high  degree.  Of 
the  functions  of  pictorial  art,  it  fulfils  all 
except  that  one.  It  can  give  you  atmos- 
phere ; it  can  give  you  form ; it  can 
tell  you  a story  ; it  can  rouse  an  emotion  • 
it  can  diagnose  a character  ; it  can  show  in 
the  artist  who  wrought  it  the  penetration 
that  belongs  to  Imagination  alone,  and  it 
can  stir  imagination  within  yourself  as  you 
realise  the  range  of  its  appeal. 

And  yet  the  absolutely  ordinary  person, 
with  a full  purse — and  many  a person  who 
would  feel  himself  grievously  wronged  if 
you  considered  him  “ ordinary  ” at  all — 
goes  on  confining  his  inquiry  into  pictorial 
Art  to  a few  visits  to  galleries  where  are 
many  painted  canvases,  and  confining  his 
purchases  to  what  are  cumbersome  and 
large-framed  articles  of  furniture  destined 
for  the  wall ! 


140  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Yet,  of  course,  Print  Collecting  has 
existed  since  the  days  of  the  invention  of 
Engraving — since  the  days,  at  all  events, 
when  the  nielli  of  the  goldsmith  yielded  to 
the  plate  of  copper  employed  by  Diirer, 
Schongauer,  Mantegna,  Lucas  of  Leyden — 
and  Print  Collecting  exists  to-day.  Only, 
an  enthusiast  about  the  matter,  a student 
who  has  thought  this  great,  long-practised 
branch  of  Art  worth  pausing  over,  and 
worth  profiting  by,  must  perforce  feel 
that  it  is  a pity  so  many  otherwise  intelli- 
gent people  have  not  acquired  the  eye  that 
enables  them  to  take  keen  pleasure  in 
something  that,  if  they  be  poor  even,  may 
yet  be  within  their  doors.  And  that — 
irrespective  of  opinions  passed  and  hints 
dropped  by  the  way — is  a point  I should 
be  glad  to  insist  on.  The  range  of 
the  Print  Collector  : the  width  of  the  field 
open  to  him  : the  opportunity  for  the  rich 
man,  the  opportunity  for  the  poor— the  art, 
the  fine  art,  in  the  sixpenny  line  engraving, 
to  be  fished,  now  and  again,  out  of  a dusty 
portfolio,  on  the  Quai  des  Augustins,  or  in 
a street  off  the  Strand,  or  in  a second-hand 
bookshop  in  Westminster  : the  art,  the  fine 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  141 


art,  in  the  almost  unique  Rembrandt  that 
Rothschilds  or  Vanderbilts  struggle  for,  at 
Christie's,  at  Sotheby’s,  or  the  Hotel 
des  Ventes. 

There  is  a moment,  in  the  collecting  of 
old  books,  for  printing’s  sake,  when  Bodonis 
are  in  the  ascendant,  or  Elzevirs.  There  is 
a moment,  in  the  collecting  of  Bindings, 
when  Roger  Payne  is  sought  for  ; and  there 
is  a moment  for  Derome,  and  a moment — 
and  it  ought  to  be  a long  one — for  Trautz- 
Bauzonnet.  There  is  a moment  when  the 
buyer  of  First  Editions  is  wanting  Scotts 
and  Richardsons,  and  a moment  when  he 
is  wanting  Wordsworths  and  Shelleys. 
And  so  in  Print  Collecting.  Fashion,  of 
course,  counts.  The  adoption  of  a particular 
order  of  furniture — the  recognition,  say,  as 
the  right  thing,  of  Sheraton  or  Hepplewhite 
— may  bring  about  a demand  for  such  prints 
as  go  with  their  sofas  or  their  cabinets,  or, 
such  at  least,  as  were  wont,  a hundred  years 
ago,  to  stand  over  and  stand  against  their 
furniture,  when  their  furniture  was  new. 
The  fashions  of  the  last  decade  or  so, 
as  to  mobilier , have  enhanced  the  prices — 
would  that  they  could  also  have  enhanced 


142  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


the  quality  ! — of  the  Eighteenth  Century 
coloured  print,  and  of  the  delicate  and 
feminine  performance  in  stipple.  Within 
the  same  period,  other  influences  have  made 
people  buy,  first,  Etchings,  and  then— good 
Etchings ; Etchings  of  Rembrandt,  Meryon, 
Whistler,  for  instance,  holding  their  own, 
all  the  while,  as  they  have  every  possible 
right  to  do — then,  within  the  same  period, 
other  influences  again  have  made  people 
buy  Mezzotints. 

These  costliest  things — in  the  fine  im- 
pressions without  which  they  are  nothing 
worth — are,  of  course,  for  the  well-to-do. 
But  there  are  many  classes  of  Fine  Prints 
altogether  outside  the  sort  of  things  that 
I have  mentioned  : and  to  the  collector  of 
modest  purse,  or  unremitting  prudence, 
these  offer  their  opportunity.  But  such 
collector  need  not  even  go  outside  at  all. 
The  coloured  print — the  first  of  fashionable 
matters  that  I mentioned — shall  not  be 
further  discussed.  Whether  it  is  one  that 
is  in  vogue,  or  one  that  is  not  in  vogue,  I 
will  not  be  privy  to  any  reader,  beginner  or 
student,  buying  it  at  all.  Let  it  return  to 
its  obscurity : a prettyish,  momentarily 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  143 


engaging,  easily-tired-of-thing,  with  not  half 
— nay,  not  one  tenth — the  character  and 
art  in  it  of  a poster  by  Steinlen,  a poster 
by  Toulouse-Lautrec,  or  by  that  true 
master  of  severe  design  and  worthy  Com- 
position, Eugene  Grasset.  But  Etchings, 
Mezzotints,  and  Line  Engravings — ah ! 
these,  whether  the  ones  in  evidence,  or  the 
ones  less  sought  for  just  now,  can  be 
discussed  earnestly,  can  be  seriously 
weighed. 

Shall  I begin  with  the  Etchings  ? 

The  art  of  Etching  has  been  used,  not 
inconsiderably  and  not  unworthily — as  Line 
Engraving  has  been  used  very  much,  and 
Mezzotint  almost  entirely — for  the  render- 
ing and  diffusion  of  famous  painted  work. 
But  it  has  been  used,  I was  going  to  say 
more  largely,  but  it  is  better,  perhaps,  to 
say  more  conspicuously  and  notably,  in 
that  wherein  consists  no  doubt  its  highest 
service  and  most  authentic  mission — in  the 
performance  of  original  labour,  the  embodi- 
ment of  original  conceptions.  The  great 
masters  of  Etching — those  in  the  first 
line,  after  all — are  not  Flameng,  Raj  on, 
Unger,  Waltner,  Macbeth — important  and 

ii— (2314) 


144  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


charming  as  are  the  interpretations  it  has 
been  their  business  to  give— they  are,  rather, 
Rembrandt,  Claude,  Vandyke,  Meryon, 
Whistler  ; and  (I  shall  add)  Jules  Jacque- 
mart  and  Alphonse  Legros.  These  men, 
and  others — two  or  three,  perhaps — whom 
I have  not  named,  are  the  greatest  masters 
of  Etching.  An  extraordinarily  rare  print, 
in  rarest  state,  by  one  of  these  artists, 
Rembrandt,  sells  for  £2,000.  A print,  by 
Jacquemart,  that  is  unquestionably  great 
and  beautiful,  you  need  pay  but  a pound 
for,  at  Sotheby's.  Clearly  then,  the 
auction-room,  and  clearly  too  the  shop 
of  the  print-dealer — Colnaghi’s,  Obach's, 
Gutekunst's — is  not  only  for  the  Astor,  the 
Vanderbilt,  the  Rothschild — it  is  also  for 
the  intelligent  poor  man. 

But  about  Rembrandt.  Let  us  go  a 
little  more  closely  into  the  question  of  his 
famous  prints,  in  the  admiration  of  which 
I recognise  no  temporary  fashion,  but  only 
the  fitting  acknowledgment  of  a position 
that  lasts. 

More,  even,  than  by  his  painted  work,  the 
mind  of  Rembrandt — his  extraordinary  per- 
ception, his  extended  sweep,  his  penetrating 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  145 


gaze,  his  philosophic  view — is  expressed 
in  his  etchings ; and,  as  to  money  matters, 
is  it  not  a welcome  thought,  a grateful, 
satisfactory  reflection,  that  if  there  are 
certain  prints  of  Rembrandt's,  which — in 
given  States  at  all  events — cost,  each  of 
them,  the  price  of  a small  house,  or  the 
price  of  a farm  in  Wiltshire,  there  are  also 
certain  prints  of  his,  good  and  desirable, 
which  cost,  each  of  them,  only  the  price 
of  a second-rate  bicycle,  of  a hired 
brougham  to  go  to  three  parties,  or  of  a 
Box  to  see  Miss  Adeline  Genee  or  Miss 
Gabrielle  Ray  ? 

The  matter  of  price  depends,  in  the  first 
place,  upon  rarity,  and,  in  the  second,  upon 
the  department  of  Rembrandt's  work  to 
which  the  print  belongs.  The  Sacred  Pieces, 
save  one  or  two  of  the  most  sought-for  ones  ; 
the  minor  Portraits  ; the  sheets  of  Studies 
(often  themselves  a delightful  little  collec- 
tion of  minor  portraits)  are  among  the 
things  least  expensive.  The  more  cele- 
brated Portraits — the  capital  examples  of 
the  master's  art  in  this  kind — and  the 
Landscapes,  which  are  rare,  nearly  all  of 
them,  and  which  evince,  peculiarly,  the 


146  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


charm  of  his  reticence,  the  economy  of  his 
means,  the  inalienable  fascination  of  his 
style,  are  the  things  which  (leaving 
out  the  absolutely  exceptional  examples) 
now  a fifty  pound  note,  and  now  a note 
for  four  hundred,  will  be  required  to 
ransom. 

How  is  it  that  Rembrandt  expressed  yet 
more  conclusively  in  his  etchings  than  in 
his  painted  canvases,  the  depth  of  his 
mind,  the  all-embracing  range  of  his 
interest,  and  his  control  and  mastery 
over  the  instruments  of  his  art  ? Had  he 
been  primarily  a colourist,  he  could  not 
of  course  have  done  that.  Titian  and 
Watteau,  addressing  themselves  to  the 
copper,  would  have  worked  long,  and  then 
but  insufficiently,  inadequately,  and  frag- 
mentarily  expressed  the  particular  vision 
which  it  was  theirs  to  receive.  But  Rem- 
brandt— a colourist  too  when  he  wants  to 
be — needs  not  to  be  seen  as  a colourist. 
Give  him  the  opportunity  for  tone,  for 
radiant  light,  for  sombre  shadow,  for  great 
distance,  for  passing  expressions — give  him, 
as  the  model  that  shall  inspire  him,  the 
landscape  of  quietude  and  the  woman  of 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  147 


character — and  the  brush  and  the  palette 
are  no  indispensable  aids  to  him.  With 
burin  and  etching  needle  il  se  tirera 
d’  affaire. 

Lack  of  opportunity,  if  not  lack  of  money, 
will  prevent  the  collector  from  assembling, 
in  any  time  less  than  a generation,  so 
splendid  a series  of  the  prints  of  Rembrandt 
as  was  possessed  years  ago,  by  Sir  Abraham 
Hume,  and  Mr.  Holford,  and  M.  Dutuit  of 
Rouen — nay,  it  must  be  admitted,  alas  ! 
that  it  has  become  impossible  for  any 
collector,  however,  richly  endowed,  to  rival 
now,  or  hereafter,  the  possessors  of  these 
treasures.  But  patience  and  ample  fortune 
will  still  permit  the  accumulation  of  noble 
cabinets,  and  the  intelligent  poor  man  may 
possess  himself  of  a few  rare  and  exquisite 
things.  He  may  get,  for  instance — if  any 
luck  be  his — for  five-and-twenty  pounds, 
his  Mdre  de  Rembrandt  au  voile  noir  ; for 
forty,  perhaps,  his  picked  impression  of  the 
wonderful  Lutma — the  Second  State,  “ with 
the  window  and  the  bottle,”  which  the 
collector  merely  of  extremest  rarities  is 
foolish  enough  to  despise — for  fifty,  a First 
State  of  the  subtle  portrait  of  Clement  de 


148  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Jonge , or  a View  of  Amsterdam  or  The 
Landscape  with  an  Obelisk. 

Vandyke's  and  Claude's  Etchings  are,  in 
number,  much  more  limited  than  Rem- 
brandt's. The  variety  in  their  condition 
is,  from  different  causes,  hardly  less  great 
— they  too  have  got  to  be  bought  warily— 
but  if  the  price  of  any  one  of  them  runs 
into  “ three  figures,"  that  is,  at  all  events, 
an  unusual  event.  Common  they  are  not 
— in  any  condition  in  which  they  are 
desirable — but,  when  the  chance  occurs,  a 
five-pound  note  may  ransom  a Claude  that 
is  perfectly  worth  having : as  it  will, 

probably,  a Vandyke  portrait  in  the  com- 
pleted State,  and  in  an  impression  in  which 
the  original  labour  of  the  master  is  not 
deprived  of  its  effect.  The  Vandyke  Etch- 
ings are  nearly  all  of  them  portraits  of 
Vandyke's  brother  artists.  His  touch, 
with  little  of  Rembrandt's  subtlety, 
is  yet  decisive,  immediate,  cunning,  and, 
so  far,  excellent.  But  his  work  upon  the 
plate  stopped  at  an  early  stage — in  most 
cases  the  plate  was  handed  over,  then,  to  a 
skilled  professional  engraver,  who  finished, 
sometimes  with  incongruous  deliberation. 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  149 


what  Vandyke  had  impulsively  begun. 
But  it  is  a mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
thing  ceases  to  have  value  and  artistic 
interest  the  moment  the  copper  has  any- 
thing upon  it  excepting  the  etched  head  : 
the  vast  difference  in  price  between  the  pure 
etchings  and  the  prints  with  the  figure 
added,  is  disproportionate  and  exaggerated. 
Study  of  the  individual  pieces  will  reveal 
many  differences  in  true  worth  and  charm  ; 
and  even  the  average  rich  man,  who  buys 
by  rule,  need  not  be  above  remembering 
that  a very  few  of  the  portraits— the 
masterly  De  Wad , conspicuously — Vandyke 
himself  worked,  no  one  else  helping  him, 
from  end  to  end  ; so  that  in  such  a case  as 
that  (provided  the  impression  be  a good 
and  intact  one)  sensible  people  have  but 
to  see  that  their  print,  with  the  initials 
“ G.  H.”  (those  of  Hendrix,  the  publisher), 
is  on  the  old  paper — that  it  is  not  later  than 
the  true  Second  State.  For  here,  as  else- 
where, of  course,  there  are  later  issues — 
and  a really  late  issue  of  a Vandyke  is  to 
be  shunned  as  a late  impression  of  a Claude 
or  a late  Rembrandt. 

Claude,  with  a touch  free  and  flexible — 


150  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


less  obviously  masculine  than  that  of  the 
great  Fleming — wrought  to  the  point  of 
pictorial  completeness  most  of  the  score  or 
so  of  plates  which  he  produced.  Unlike 
his  noble  drawings  in  bistre  with  the  pen, 
his  Etchings  boast  no  swift  and  summary 
method.  Le  Bouvier,  the  sweetest  of  them, 
shows  the  copper  coaxed  and  petted — won 
over  to  his  purposes  by  what  seductive  and 
slow  appeal ! It  is  not  always  quite  like 
that,  of  course.  Simpler,  more  direct, 
though  far  from  actually  rapid,  is  the  pro- 
cess in  the  Wooden  Bridge , with  the  tufted 
trees  and  the  landscape's  placid  sunshine, 
and  in  the  Cattle  going  Home  in  Stormy 
Weather — or  in  threatening  weather,  rather  ; 
for  there  is  but  a suggestion  of  travelling 
rain-cloud  over  the  hill.  And — not  to 
speak  of  two  or  three  admitted  failures,  due 
generally  to  technical  mischance — in  at 
least  one  agreeable  performance,  Le 
Chevrier , complete  tonality  has  not  for  a 
moment  been  sought  for.  Pale  and  grey 
and  fairly  uniform  over  the  whole  surface 
of  the  etched  plate  and  in  the  different 
planes  of  the  landscape,  Le  Chevrier  relies 
for  its  delightfulness  upon  its  exquisite 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  151 


tree-drawing,  and  upon  the  suave  disposal 
of  every  incident  and  object  of  the  scene. 

Forty  years  or  so  ago,  Dutch  Etchings  by 
other  men  than  Rembrandt,  were  habitu- 
ally the  objects  of  the  collector’s  desire. 
Some  of  them  have  been  discarded  rightly. 
Others  have  lapsed  from  favour  by  mere 
accident  or  caprice.  Now  is  the  time  to 
search  for  them.  I do  not  expect  that  they 
will  ever  again  be  in  the  front  rank,  abso- 
lutely ; nor  do  I profess  that  the  best  of 
them  are  anywhere  deemed  valueless  now. 
But  as,  in  a Past  not  very  remote,  they  were 
esteemed  too  highly,  so  are  they,  as  a whole, 
esteemed  too  lightly  in  our  day.  In^the 
Future,  there  will  be  La  reaction.  And 
when  that  comes,  Berghem,  with  his  serene 
and  ordered  grace,  and  Bega,  with  his 
brilliant  spontaneous  transcripts  from  the 
life  of  the  hour,  will  be  placed,  with  little 
hesitation,  I should  suppose,  by  the  side  of 
Ostade — at  present  the  only  Dutch  etcher, 
save  Rembrandi  himself,  the  occurrence  of 
whose  prints  in  the  sale-room  provokes  even 
a semblance  of  curiosity ror  excitement. 

Berghem  has  often  been  recognised ; so 
have  Adrian  Van  de  Velde  and  Paul  Potter  ; 


152  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


but  I do  not  know  that  Criticism  has  to  this 
day  sounded  at  all  adequately  the  praise 
of  Bega — most  like  Ostade,  but  yet  differing 
from  Ostade.  Both  men,  even  in  their 
slightest  performances,  are  masters  of 
Composition.  La  Famille , of  Ostade,  beats 
anything  of  Bega’s  in  triumphant  intricacy 
of  chiaroscuro  ; but  effects  of  chiaroscuro, 
astonishingly  broad  and  right  and  telling, 
are  within  Bega’s  command,  and  an  extra- 
ordinary accuracy  of  dramatic  action  in  the 
slightest  affair.  Had  I to  single  out  one 
particularly  fortunate  example  of  Bega’s 
treatment  of  humble  life,  it  would  be> 
I think,  the  happily  " unfinished  ” plate> 
La  Mere  an  Cabaret.  I say  “ happily  un- 
finished ” — it  was  stopped  by  Bega  at 
precisely  the  point  in  which,  with  the  copper 
but  half  covered,  the  balance  of  shadow 
and  light  was  perfectly  obtained,  and  the 
little  story,  such  as  it  is,  perfectly  told. 

Quite  a small  outlay  puts  a man  in 
possession  of  charming  things  by  Hollar,  a 
Bohemian  of  Prague,  who,  coming  into 
England  towards  the  middle  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Century,  found  at  least  some  patron- 
age at  the  hands  of  that  earliest  of  great 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  153 


English  collectors,  Charles  the  First's  Lord 
Arundel.  Hollar  could  do  original  work, 
and  copyists'  work.  For  dear  life,  as  much 
as  for  the  love  of  his  calling,  he  laboured 
assiduously.  Late  and  long  he  toiled,  and 
scanty  sometimes  beyond  belief  was  his 
reward.  He  was  the  witness,  or  might 
have  been  the  witness,  of  England  rent  in 
twain  by  the  struggle  between  Royalist  and 
Parliamentarian.  Wenceslaus  Hollar  with- 
drew himself  from  the  scene  of  it,  retired 
to  Antwerp,  and  there,  of  the  plague,  died 
miserably.  The  best  English  collections  of 
his  works  have  been  those  formed  within 
the  last  forty  years,  and  dispersed  within 
the  last  twenty,  by  a most  brilliant  etcher, 
Seymour  Haden,  and  by  one  of  the  last, 
best  type  of  patient  connoisseurs,  the 
Reverend  J . J . Hey  wood,  who — though  the 
literary  piece  in  question  is  unsigned — 
surely  wrote  the  admirable  Preface  to  the 
Burlington  Club's  Catalogue  of  its  Hollar 
Exhibition. 

Between  the  Seventeenth  Century  and 
the  middle  of  the  Nineteenth,  there  was 
a great  blank  in  the  history — a curious 
ceasing,  rather,  in  the  production — of  good 


154  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Etching.  Early  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
David  Wilkie  and,  yet  more  particularly, 
Andrew  Geddes,  wrought  a few  fine  plates, 
but  they  form  only  a stone  or  two  in  the 
unbuilt  bridge  between  Rembrandt  and 
Mery  on.  The  time  was  a time  of  Line 
Engraving ; not  of  that  original  Line 
Engraving,  of  which  I shall  have  a 
word  to  say,  but  of  a not  ignoble 
interpretative  Line  Engraving,  in  which 
the  translators  of  Rubens — Vosterman 
and  the  two  Bolswerts  and  others — 
and  certain  great  Frenchmen,  led  the  way. 
And  it  was  a time  of  Mezzotint.  The 
interpreters  of  Lely  and  Kneller  were 
followed  by  those  of  Reynolds,  Gains- 
borough, Romney,  Morland,  Hogarth — 
Earlom’s  mezzotints  of  Marriage  a la  Mode 
are  even  more  pictorial  and  acceptable  than 
the  prints  of  the  line  engravers  who  were 
Hogarth’s  contemporaries.  Then  came  the 
interpreters — in  Mezzotint  now,  and  now  in 
Line  Engraving — of  Turner,  and  then  he 
who,  until  Frank  Short’s  day,  was  the  one 
interpreter  in  Mezzotint  of  Constable.  That 
was  David  Lucas.  Turner  was  served,  in 
both  the  mediums,  by  admirable  artists, 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  155 


most  of  whom  he  more  or  less  trained.  In 
Line  Engraving,  employed  upon  the  “ Sou- 
thern Cross  **  and  “ England  and  Wales/* 
there  were,  very  conspicuously,  the  Brothers 
Cooke,  John  Pye,  and  William  Miller.  In 
Mezzotint,  employed  upon  the  “ Liber 
Studiorum/*  upon  the  “ Ports  of  England,** 
“ Rivers  of  England,**  there  were  Dun- 
karton,  Lupton,  Charles  Turner.  For 
nearly  all  the  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  one  or  other  of  their  works  was 
proceeding  on  its  way.  The  prints  are  held, 
naturally,  in  various  degrees  of  critical  or 
popular  esteem.  A fine  First  State  of  a 
print  from  the  “ Liber  Studiorum  **  may  be 
worth,  perhaps,  on  an  average,  from  twelve 
to  twenty  guineas.  Half-a-sovereign  will 
buy  a very  pleasant  impression  of  a subject 
in  the  “ Ports  of  England.**  But,  the 
history  of  the  blank  period  in  Etching — 
when  Engraving  reigned  in  its  place — 
having  thus  been  lightly  sketched,  we  will 
return  to  Etching  in  its  second  productive 
period,  to  be  with  the  master,  Meryon. 

It  was  in  the  “ Nineteenth  Century  ’* 
that,  twenty-five  years  ago,  I was  permitted 
to  first  print  an  Essay,  that  has  since  been 


156  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


republished  in  many  forms  and  places,  on 
Meryon's  tragic  story,  and  the  character- 
istics of  his  work.  I will  now  say  little  about 
him.  The  work  has,  obviously,  not  changed 
in  the  long  interval — it  was  finished  when 
I first  wrote — nothing  has  changed  but 
popular  opinion  and  the  money  value 
of  the  prints.  An  impression  of  the  First 
State  of  the  Abside  de  Notre-Dame , poor 
Meryon — lonely,  unrecognised,  already  half 
distraught,  it  may  be — thought  himself 
well  paid  for  when  he  received  for  it,  forty 
years  since,  from  M.  Wasset,  of  the  French 
War  Office,  a franc  and  a half.  A fine 
impression  of  the  Second  State,  bought 
twenty  years  ago  in  Paris,  for  an  English- 
man, by  M.  Thibaudeau — whom  I lament 
— cost  four  pounds,  ten ; and  now  an 
American  print-seller  amiably  seeks  and 
fails  to  tear  that  print  from  its  possessor — 
moyennant , not  four  pounds,  ten,  but  a 
hundred  guineas.  This  little  circumstance 
— so  comforting  to  the  practitioners  of  all 
the  Arts — would  seem  to  show  that  not 
much  more  than  one  complete  generation 
need  elapse  between  the  death  of  a genius, 
tired,  neglected,  solitary,  and  the  recognition 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  157 


of  him,  in  golden  coin,  a little  of  which 
he  might  have  found  useful.  And,  mean- 
time— in  Art,  in  Literature,  in  Musical 
Composition — the  performance  that  has 
been  on  the  level  of  its  own  day’s  public, 
has  received  that  public’s  reward. 

We  were  not,  all  of  us,  altogether  appre- 
ciative— a quarter  of  a century  ago — of 
the  artistic  message  of  Whistler.  Some- 
times Whistler  exhibited  his  things  in 
a condition  in  which,  though  they  had 
reached  cleverness  (they  did  that  from  the 
very  beginning)  they  had  not  reached 
perfection.  That  was  the  case  with  the 
first  display  of  the  Venetian  Etchings.  And 
it  was  a little  trying.  But  Whistler — 
blithe  and  flourishing,  even  in  moments 
when  the  world  had  not  fully  acknowledged 
the  magic  that  belongs  to  him  at  his  best — 
remained  with  us,  to  enjoy  a eulogy 
pronounced  at  last  without  reserve,  by 
qualified  voices. 

Scarcely  a score  of  splendid  coppers,  built 
up  with  supreme  force — with  a deliberation 
rare  in  an  etcher,  and  more  habitually  a 
property  of  such  a master  of  the  burin  as 
was  Albert  Diirer — constitute,  in  a true 


158  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


sense,  the  ceuvre  of  Meryon  : on  these  is 
founded  an  enduring  fame.  Whistler's 
fame,  too,  will  last  ; but,  putting  pictures, 
lithographs,  drawings,  out  of  our  purview, 
the  sources  of  Mr.  Whistler's  fame,  the 
qualities  that  justify  it,  are  to  be  found 
distributed  over  two  or  three  hundred 
etchings,  of  which  the  first  were  wrought 
in  1857  and  1858,  and  the  last  but  some 
ten  years  ago.  To  make  complete  col- 
lections of  an  artist's  work — even  to 
endeavour  to  make  them — has  gone  very 
much  out  of  fashion.  Would  that  the  habit 
— the  old  collector’s  habit — might  come 
into  fashion  again,  in  cases  where  it  is 
possible  ! — because  it  is  that  patient,  ex- 
haustive, concentrated  collecting  that  has 
given  us  the  true  connoisseur,  that  has 
educated  the  expert.  And  our  way  now — 
the  ordinary  cultivated  person's  way,  I 
mean — is  one  that  is  too  far  removed  from 
that.  It  consists  in  knowing  a few  master- 
pieces, or  a few  favourite  plates,  and  leaving 
quite  outside  appreciation  the  bulk  of  a 
great  man's  labour. 

But  in  the  case  of  Whistler,  as  in  the 
case  of  Rembrandt,  complete  collecting  is 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  159 


impossible.  Neither  Mr.  Howard  Mans- 
field in  New  York,  nor  Sir  John  Day, 
nor  Mr.  Theobald  in  London — admirable 
amateurs,  one  and  all,  whose  rich  possessions 
are  to  be  envied  earnestly — has,  I feel  sure, 
an  absolutely  complete  assemblage  of  all  that 
Whistler  ever  wrought.  Perhaps  Mr.  Freer 
has  now,  at  Detroit — but  at  what  cost  ! A 
few  plates,  a very  few  plates  at  least,  must 
be  lacking  to  most  of  them.  But  collections 
are  still  to  be  formed  : important  groups, 
of  twenty,  thirty,  fifty  etchings,  are  still — 
with  a will,  with  patience,  and  not  without 
some  money — to  be  got  together.  Those 
groups  should  be  representative.  Starting 
with  one  or  two  pieces  taken  from  the  early 
“ French  Set,”  such  as  the  Vieille  aux 
Loques  or  the  Marchande  de  Moutarde,  they 
should  go  on  with  two  or  three  examples 
from  the  “ Thames  Set,”  such  as  the  Black 
Lion  Wharf  or  the  Thames  Police ; they 
should  include  one  or  £two  dry-points 
of  the  “ Leyland  period  ” — for  so  collectors 
speak  of  a few  years  of  Whistler’s  middle 
time — one  or  two  sweeping  visions  of  the 
Thames,  after  the  time  of  the  “ Thames 
Set,”  such  as  Price's  Candle  Works , in  the 

12—  (2314) 


160  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


First  State  at  all  costs,  and  the  Large  Pool  ; 
and  then  they  should  not  close  without  the 
Little  Venice — that  faultless  and  refined 
dream — a piece  or  two  from  the  later 
Dutch  series,  from  the  Brussels  etchings,, 
from  the  Loire  etchings,  and  happy  will  be 
the  collector  if  he  can  add  to  these,  Busy 
Chelsea , or  Battersea  Bridge.  The  fact  that 
on  some  previous  pages  in  the  present 
volume  I have  treated  Whistler  by  himself 
would  scarcely  have  justified  my  passing 
him  without  proportionate  mention  in  the 
present  essay. 

Seymour  Haden,  founder  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  Painter-Etchers,  was,  until  the 
somewhat  recent  appearance  of  Mr.  D.  Y. 
Cameron,  the  only  English  artist  whose 
work  competes  at  all,  in  reasonable  accept- 
ability, with  Whistler’s.  The  vigour  of 
Seymour  Haden’ s labour  is  more  quickly 
evident.  Its  exquisiteness — but  Whistler’s 
exquisiteness  is  altogether  his  own. 
Seymour  Haden — beginning  serious  work 
in  1864  or  1865 — has  produced  about  three 
hundred  plates.  And  they  have  largely 
circulated  ; for  they  are  not  only  sound, 
strong,  skilful  etchings,  but  delightful 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  161 


presentations,  most  of  them,  of  the  land- 
scape they  record : produced  in  happy 

moments,  under  an  impulse  not  to  be 
gainsaid.  And  those  of  them  that,  through 
any  circumstances,  have  become  rare,  have, 
as  years  have  passed,  increased  in  price, 
greatly.  Seymour  Haden's  vogue,  which 
shows  no  signs  of  ceasing,  has  been  already 
a long  one.  Popularity  belongs  to  the 
spirited  prints  etched  in  the  'Sixties — of 
which  the  Agamemnon  is  chief — and  to  the 
broader,  richer  dry-points  of  a later  time  : 
to  the  rare  Windmill  Hill  for  instance. 

Two  or  three  French  etchers,  of  the  mid- 
Nineteenth  Century,  one  knows  and  has  to 
mention,  as  the  equals,  more  or  less,  of  the 
greatest.  How  many  people  have  heard  of 
Ribot,  a sort  of  Chardin  of  the  etching 
needle,  who,  in  six  lines,  sometimes,  gives 
character  to  cooks  and  scullions  ? How 
many,  of  Veyrassat  ? — whose  white  horse 
and  whose  black  horse  are  placed  together 
in  the  ferry  boat,  or  plod  together  through 
the  ploughed  field,  under  a wide  sky.  How 
many  of  Lalanne  ? Or  of  Jacque — as 
an  etcher  ? How  many,  of  a man  who 
was  not  French  by  birth,  and  who  has 


162  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


etched  best  of  all  the  slow  canals  of  his 
own  lowlands — Jongkind  ? But  it  was  not 
of  these  that  I was  thinking  ; nor  even  of 
Millet.  I was  thinking  of  Bracquemond  ; 
though  he  has  wrought,  it  may  be,  not 
always  wisely,  and  too  much — the  note  of 
singular  originality  and  genius  struck  in 
Le  Haut  d’un  Battant  de  Porte , not  having 
been  sustained.  But,  were  it  by  Le  Haut 
d'un  Battant  de  Porte  alone,  Bracquemond 
is  destined  to  live.  I was  thinking  of 
J acquemart,  who  entered  into  the  very  soul 
of  beautiful  things — one  of  whose  exquisite 
reproductions  of  arms,  or  armour,  or 
porcelain,  a pound  or  so,  and  sometimes 
less  than  that,  will,  as  has  been  said  before, 
to  this  day  buy.  And  I was  thinking  most 
of  all  of  Alphonse  Legros. 

Legros  is  a belated  Old  Master,  and  the 
belated  Old  Master  does  not  find  the  readiest 
acceptance  from  the  busy  modern  world. 
Legros’ s time  has  come,  however.  He  has 
possessed  his  soul  in  patience,  and  as  years 
have  followed  years,  he  has  enlarged  the 
range  and  enhanced,  I think,  even  the 
quality  of  his  art.  Legros' s figure-subjects, 
such  as  La  Mort  et  le  Bucher  on  and  the 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  163 


marvellous  Chantres  Espagnols , have  ever 
been  pathetic  and  weird — a meditative, 
reticent  poetry  is  of  the  very  warp  and 
woof  of  his  mind.  And  he  is  a master  of 
technique — of  simple  ways,  deliberately 
adopted,  after  knowing  all  ways.  Writing 
twenty  years,  or  even  ten  years,  since,  about 
his  Landscape,  one  would  have  had  less  to 
say  about  that  than  one  must  say  to-day. 
For  almost  lately  there  has  been  granted  to 
his  landscapes  of  France,  such  as  Les 
Tourbieres  and  Le  Mur  du  Presbyter e and 
Le  Pre  ensoleiley  a refinement  of  vision,  a 
perfection  of  performance,  such  as  comes 
to  two  or  three  men  only,  in  the  course  of 
all  the  history  of  a great  Art. 

But  it  is  time  that  original  Line  En- 
graving passed,  briefly  and  rapidly,  under 
view.  Briefly,  not  only  because  of  necessity, 
but  because  of  desirability — there  is  less 
that  is  in  any  way  new  to  say  about  it,  than 
about  that  other  art  from  which  we  now 
turn.  The  collector  of  modern  mind  will 
not  be  likely  to  throw  himself  very  enthu- 
siastically into  the  pursuit  of  prints,  many 
of  which  appeal  to  antiquary  rather  than 
to  lover  of  pure  Art — so  much  Italian  work 


164  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


betrays  the  archaic,  bears  the  stamp  of 
the  Primitive. 

Of  the  best  Renaissance  Line  Engravings 
wrought  in  Italy,  some — like  most  of  our 
English  Mezzotints — are  translations  of 
other  artists’  designs.  Such  are  Marc 
Antonio’s,  which  were  the  objects  of  curious 
research  and  interested  comparisons, 
between  collectors,  forty  years  ago.  Such 
even  is  one  piece  of  Zoan  Andrea’s  which  I 
cherish — the  Dance  of  Damsels , after  Andrea 
Mantegna  : a rearrangement,  more  or  less, 
of  a group  in  Mantegna’s  “ Parnassus.” 
The  fine  and  wholly  original  things  in 
Italian  Line  Engraving  are  not  so  very 
numerous,  and  it  is  seldom  they  are  found 
in  the  condition  the  collector  wants.  The 
austere  spirit  of  Mantegna,  relaxing  for 
a while  in  that  Dance  of  Damsels , is 
expressed,  perfectly  and  characteristically, 
in  prints  it  is  so  difficult  to  light  upon. 
Diirer,  who,  in  the  Low  Countries,  appre- 
ciated and  exchanged  prints  with  Master 
Lucas  of  Leyden,  had  hoped,  in  travelling 
to  Italy,  to  behold  Mantegna.  But  when 
Diirer  reached  the  South,  the  mortal  part 
of  the  great  master  whom  one  associates 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  165 


with  Padua  and  with  Mantua — though 
Vicenza  was  the  place  of  his  birth — the 
mortal  part  of  the  noble  and  always 
masculine  Mantegna  was  no  more  there. 

Lucas  van  Leyden  was  not,  on  the  copper, 
such  a draughtsman  as  Diirer  ; but  he  was 
strong  and  quaint,  dramatic,  interesting. 
And,  over  and  above  those  many  pieces 
which  are  concerned  with  human  fortunes, 
Lucas  van  Leyden’s  design  in  Ornament, 
both  for  line  and  for  light  and  shade,  was 
of  the  most  ingenious,  the  most  subtly 
symmetrical,  the  most  accomplished. 

But  for  sheer  dexterity  of  execution,  for 
pure  brilliance  of  technical  effect,  and  for 
excellent  design  to  boot,  one  of  the  seven 
German  “ Little  Masters  ” — Heinrich  Alde- 
grever — bears  the  palm.  I speak  of  him  as 
a master  of  Ornament.  Barthel  Beham, 
another  of  the  “ Little  Masters,”  would 
concern  us  more  closely  if  he  had  been 
more  productive.  Scanty,  at  best,  is  his 
admirable  oeuvre , and  scarce  are  the 
examples  of  it.  But  there  is  Sebald,  his 
brother.  On  the  small  scale  which,  fortu- 
nately, in  these  German  works,  is  never 
dissociated  from  greatness  of  style  and 


166  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


scheme,  Hans  Sebald  Beham — whom,  years 
ago,  Mr.  Loftie  rightly  eulogised — produced 
plate  after  plate  which  dealt,  now  with 
Ornament,  now  with  popular  and  peasant 
life,  now  with  grim  and  impressive  Allegory. 
The  English  print  collector — alive  to  the 
naive  prettiness  of  Martin  Schongauer — has 
been  strangely  slow  to  appreciate  the  value 
and  the  fascination  of  Sebald  BehanTs  work. 
A poor  impression  of  a plate  of  his  is  scarcely 
worth  buying  ; but  five  or  six  guineas,  and 
a little  patience,  will  even  now  secure  a 
fine  one.  Has  the  English  collector 
an  excuse  for  his  neglect  ? I doubt  it. 
The  best  that  he  could  urge  would  be 
devotion  to  Durer — a continuous  occupa- 
tion with  the  efforts  of  that  master-mind, 
that  well-controlled  burin. 

Alas  ! the  true  collector  is  himself  so 
rare  a person.  In  Germany — where  the 
cost  of  Durer  line  engravings  increases 
every  year,  and  where  even  the  woodcuts 
not  actually  of  his  own  execution,  are 
welcomed — any  good  Durer  would  be  the 
subject  of  keen  interest,  and  the  motive 
for  reasonable  rivalry.  There  is  no  fear 
there,  at  all  events,  that  the  less  conspicuous 


THE  PRINT  COLLECTOR  167 


of  Differ’ s pieces,  wrought  upon  copper,  will 
be  neglected.  But  with  us  it  is  too  much 
the  tendency  to  ask  for  the  Melancholia , 
the  beautiful  Nativity , the  Knight  of  Death , 
if  we  can  afford  to  have  it ; and  to  forget 
the  quaintness  of  the  charm,  the  happy 
naivete  of  conception,  the  exquisiteness  of 
the  workmanship,  of  his  various  presenta- 
tions of  the  Virgin  and  Child — of  which  the 
Virgin  with  the  Pear  and  the  Virgin  by  the 
City  Wall  (never,  indeed,  obtainable,  in 
good  condition,  unless  pretty  well  paid  for) 
are  two  of  the  most  admirable.  4 4 The 
great  Albert  ! ” — as  the  most  affectionate 
and  reverent  of  his  devotees  delight  to  call 
him — of  his  work  the  sane  and  masculine 
admirer  of  Art  finds  it  impossible  to  tire. 
Would  we  discover  him  at  his  most  solid, 
and  his  most  superb,  the  Great  White  Horse 
and  the  Little  White  Horse  may  be  resorted 
to.  Would  we  seek,  in  a single  little  print, 
his  finest  grace  of  line,  his  most  genial  mood, 
the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  at  its  best, 
there  is  the  plate  of  the  Three  Genii , whose 
limited  inches  give  dignity  and  radiance  to 
any  place  in  which  it  is. 


XVI 

THE  NORWICH  MASTERS 

In  asking  leave  to  treat  together  Cotman 
and  Crome,  I must  at  first  sight  seem — 
with  those  who  really  know — to  owe  apolo- 
gies to  both  of  those  great  artists.  But 
there  are  cogent  reasons  for  doing  the  very 
thing  which  in  the  first  instance  will  seem 
natural  and  appropriate  only  to  those  who 
approach  superficially  or  distantly  the 
Norwich  Landscape  School.  He  who  is 
least  learned  in  it  is  of  course  aware  that 
to  that  School  belonged  these  two  superior, 
thoroughly  individual  painters — that  they 
were,  indeed,  its  chiefs.  Together,  more  or 
less,  he  classes  them — mildly  surmising 
their  similarity,  and  unsuspicious  of  their 
difference.  I treat  them — however  slightly 
I may  treat  them — I treat  them  in  one 
Essay,  not  because  I think  that  anything 
beyond  the  accident  of  a locality  brings 

168 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  169 


them  together,  but  just  because  I hold  that 
in  their  genius  and  production  they  are 
apart  absolutely,  and  that  is  what  I desire 
to  make  plain. 

The  countryside  that  gave  birth  to  the 
one  gave  birth  to  the  other.  And  their 
days  overlapped.  And  since  in  certain 
years  of  Crome’s  maturer  life  and  Cotman’s 
boyhood  the  roofs  of  one  city  sheltered 
them,  their  walks  were  from  time  to  time 
in  the  same  places — their  subjects,  at  least 
their  nominal  subjects,  were  from  time  to 
time  the  same. 

The  little  they  had  in  common  there  ends, 
however.  Even  socially — though  I do  not 
want  to  insist  upon  that  too  much — they 
were  of  different  worlds  : a line  almost  as 
distinct  dividing  Cotman — the  more  or 
less  educated  son  of  a well-to-do  silk  mercer 
of  the  East  Anglian  capital — from  Crome 
(whose  people  were  artisans  or  publicans) 
as  from  persons  of  the  upper  middle  class, 
persons  in  good  County  or  good  professional 
Society.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on,  Cotman 
— notwithstanding  restricted  means — was 
nearer  that  Society  than  the  Society 
of  Crome.  He  was  admitted  to  it,  more  or 


170  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


less.  His  tastes  fitted  him  for  it.  But 
Crome,  by  his  own  nature  or  by  his 
circumstances,  had  no  such  range  and  vista. 

And  what  I have  just  said  implies  at 
once  a difference  in  the  genius  of  the  two. 
Crome  was  a simple  Realist — not  blind, 
indeed,  to  the  poetic,  or  at  least  the  graceful 
and  agreeable,  side  of  Realism  : the  Realism 
that  had  amenity.  But  Realism,  after  alh 
Representation  sufficed  him — representa- 
tion of  fact.  The  fact  might  be  devoid  of 
beauty,  or  it  might  be  abundantly  possessed 
of  it.  Now,  fact  and  representation  of  fact 
were  not  enough  for  Cotman.  In  different 
degrees,  of  course — moved  at  different 
periods  by  impulses  of  different  strength — 
Cotman  must  invent,  arrange,  alter,  en- 
hance. This  temperament,  this  ambition, 
this  various  and  subjective  vision,  ensured 
for  him  a greater  inequality  of  performance, 
and  made  failure  almost  as  inevitable  as 
triumph.  For  Crome,  it  was  land  always 
— “ land,  the  solid  and  safe.”  The  feats  of 
Cotman,  so  to  put  it,  were  in  deep  waters 
and  exalted  skies.  That  is,  he  was,  in 
much  of  the  most  characteristic  of  his  work, 
tout  bonnement  a poet. 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  171 


To  say  this,  is  not  to  disparage  in  the 
least  the  achievements  of  the  older  and 
more  widely  accepted  artist.  About  Crome 
there  is  the  interest  of  steady  and  excellent 
performance  : about  Cotman,  the  fascina- 
tion of  splendid  endeavour  and  of  purely 
individual  gift.  A Public  at  present  un- 
enlightened enough  to  class  men  to  some 
extent  in  virtue  of  the  medium  in  which 
they  practise,  finds  in  Crome’s  addiction 
to  oil  paint,  in  Cotman’s  addiction  to  water- 
colour, a yet  further  reason  for  assigning  to 
the  former  priority  of  place.  Oil  paint  was 
Crome’ s material.  He  drew  in  water-colour 
very  little — much  of  his  work  being  accom- 
plished before  Water-colour’s  day.  But  he 
did  draw  upon  the  copper — to  that  degree 
he  was  an  etcher — and  he  came  between 
the  two  great  periods  of  Etching.  But  to 
that  degree  alone.  For  the  time  was  not 
one  in  which  what  is  really  an  essential 
part  of  Etching — the  printing  from  the 
plate — was  held  to  demand  the  attention 
of  the  artist.  Crome  was  never  concerned 
with  that.  And,  if  he  was  concerned  at 
all,  he  was  concerned  only  ignorantly,  with 
a part  of  Etching  yet  more  essential 


172  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


for  the  artist  to  command — the  “ biting/' 
the  action  of  the  acid.  Technically 
speaking,  therefore,  Crome  was  no  more 
etcher  than  water-colour  painter.  He 
was  just  a draughtsman  on  the  copper. 
But  the  draughtsmanship  itself  was  delight- 
ful— it  was  accurate  and  free,  and  character- 
istic. It  made  a series  of  agreeable 
memoranda  of  the  scenes  he  loved.  And, 
this  much  recognised,  and  stated,  it  is  to 
Crome’s  oil  painting  that  we  return. 

For  a quarter  of  a century  at  the  most 
did  Crome  practise  his  art.  Born  in  1769, 
in  a small  public-house  in  Norwich,  he  was 
at  twelve  years  old  a country  doctor's 
errand-boy,  and  later  he  succeeded  in 
getting  himself  apprenticed  to  a house  and 
sign  painter,  and  the  story  may  be  repeated 
for  what  it  is  worth  that  he  was  the  first  to 
compass  the  not  very  considerable  artistic 
achievement  of  imitating  in  paint  the  grain 
of  woods. 

The  subjects  of  certain  of  the  pieces 
visible  at  the  first  exhibition  of  the  Norwich 
Society  of  Artists,  which  he,  with  Robert 
Ladbrooke  and  others,  founded  in  1803, 
prove  that  Crome,  though  not  greatly 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  173 


travelled,  had  by  that  time  strayed  beyond 
his  own  borders.  Cumberland  and  the 
country  of  the  Wye — perhaps  North  Wales 
also — had  known  his  steps.  Later,  in  1814, 
he  was  once  in  Paris,  where,  with  a due 
regard  to  the  foliage,  and  as  a landscape 
painter  only,  he  painted  the  Boulevards. 
In  1821,  when  barely  fifty-two  years  old, 
Crome  died,  and  as  Gainsborough  is  said 
to  have  declared  in  loving-kindness  on  his 
death-bed,  “ We  are  all  going  to  Heaven, 
and  Vandyke  will  be  of  the  company,”  so 
it  is  told  of  Crome  that  his  last  uttered 
thought  was  a protest  of  his  life-long 
devotion  to  a master  of  Dutch  landscape, 

My  dear  Hobbema,  how  I have  loved 
you  ! ” “ Ben  trovato,”  whether  “ vero  ” 

or  not.  The  exclamation  is  at  least  one 
that  would  have  registered  accurately  what 
had  been  upon  the  artist’s  art  the  most 
potent  influence. 

Not  that  Crome  was  a copyist  or 
plagiarist,  however — the  Dutch  Realists 
started  him  : flexibly  he  adopted  their  art 
to  the  conditions  that  lay  about  his  life. 
Some  of  the  scenes  that  he  lived  amongst 
recalled  the  very  scenes  that  they  had 


174  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


painted — the  avenue  ; the  shade  of  wood- 
lands ; the  light  upon  the  sandhills.  But 
other  scenes  he  treated  brilliantly  and 
sterlingly,  that  they  had  never  known.  It 
is  the  air  of  the  uplands  that  stirs  upon  his 
Mousehold  Heath — done,  he  said,  “ for  air 
and  for  space  " — it  is  that,  too,  that  bathes 
his  “ Windmill  on  a Heath  " (again  Mouse- 
hold  Heath,  I imagine)  ; and  not  a Dutch- 
man's at  all  is  the  vision  of  the  “ Slate 
Quarries,"  which,  wrought  about  1805  prob- 
ably— and  probably  in  Cumberland,  and  not, 
as  the  National  Gallery  Catalogue  asserts,  in 
Wales — is  a noble  rendering  of  observed 
fact.  1816  is  the  year  of  “ Mousehold 
Heath  " ; and  in  the  subtlety  of  atmosphere 
in  that,  and  in  the  “ Windmill,"  and  in  the 
more  limited  spaces  of  the  “ Poringland 
Oak,"  the  climax  of  Crome's  art  must,  I 
think,  have  been  reached.  The  sturdy  but 
not  unpicturesque  veracity  of  these  things 
would,  at  any  time,  have  been  an  achieve- 
ment, and  we  must  remember  that  in 
English  Landscape  Painting  the  ground  had 
scarcely  been  broken  when  Crome  worked. 
Crome  was  nearly  as  much  Richard 
Wilson's  contemporary  as  Constable's. 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  175 


Two  other  things  I want  to  note  briefly, 
before  I pass  on  to  Cotman.  One  of  them 
is  the  remarkable  intricacy  of  illumination 
in  Crome’s  “ Chapel  Fields  ” — shifting  and 
travelling  light,  in  which  breadth  is  never 
lost  or  forgotten.  And  this  of  itself  brings 
me  to  the  other — Crome’s  relation  to  a 
yet  earlier  English  master — Gainsborough. 
Gainsborough,  too,  in  Landscape,  had  been 
started  on  his  way  by  something  of  admira- 
tion and  of  knowledge  of  Dutch  Seven- 
teenth-Century painting.  Between  Crome’s 
earlier  work  and  Gainsborough’s  there  is 
therefore  an  affinity,  over  and  above  that 
which  might  be  brought  about  by  a measure 
of  likeness  in  their  earlier  themes.  Compare, 
for  instance,  the  “ Great  Cornard,” — an 
early  Gainsborough,  famous  and  exquisite — 
with  many  a Crome.  But  while  Gains- 
borough, concerned  with  Landscape  in  his 
later  time,  attained  a breadth  not  in  the 
admirable  “ Great  Cornard,”  and  sought 
for  and  reached  picturesque  generalisation, 
there  was  in  Crome’s  maturer  work  no 
generalisation  at  all,  no  mere  picturesque- 
ness, no  studied  grace  of  rusticity,  no 
merely  decorative  effect.  Crome  in  his 

13— 52314) 


176  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


greatest  breadth  is  only  all  the  truer  to  the 
particular  place  and  the  particular  hour. 
Master,  at  least  as  much  as  Gainsborough 
was,  of  the  “ technique  ” of  oil  painting, 
he  is  concerned  less  consciously  with  an 
individual  vision,  an  individual  invention. 
He  interprets  largely  and  boldly,  but  he 
interprets  with  fidelity,  still. 

An  individual  vision,  from  end  to  end, 
was  Cotman’s,  and  as  he  grew  in  sensibility,, 
it  was  a characteristic  of  his  work  to  gather 
grace.  Cot  man  began  in  sturdy  strength, 
and  continued  and  ended  in  recognisable 
poetry — in  performances  sometimes,  but 
not  invariably,  on  a level  with  his  thought  : 
in  performances,  sometimes,  of  almost 
ineffectual  passion.  Which,  being  said,  it 
is  implied  that  gaining  certain  qualities,  he 
lost  or  was  poorer  in  others.  The  works 
that  represent  him  really,  must,  much  more 
than  Crome’s,  be  works  drawn  equally  from 
the  earlier  and  latter  half  of  his  career ; and 
we  are  free,  I think,  to  admire  most  that 
which  may  most  appeal  to  us — the  period 
in  which,  while  being  still  individual  (for 
he  was  ever  that)  he  had  affinity  with 
Girtin — was  sober,  strong,  restrained — or 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  177 


the  period  in  which,  with  something  of  the 
audacity  of  Turner's  later  palette,  he  laid  his 
brilliant,  lustrous  blues  against  his  gold  and 
his  piercing  scarlet.  As  he  was  a drawing- 
master  for  most  of  his  days — privately  first, 
in  the  Eastern  Counties,  in  Norwich  and 
Yarmouth,  which  were  successively  his 
homes,  and  publicly  afterwards,  in  London, 
when  Turner,  by  his  “ Elect  Cotman  ! Elect 
Cotman,''  contributed  to  get  him  his  ap- 
pointment at  King's  College — Cotman’s 
reputation  has  been  in  danger  of  suffering 
by  the  placing  on  the  market  of  piece  after 
piece  that  he  never  saw,  unless  perhaps 
momentarily  to  blame,  to  correct,  or  to 
amend  it.  He  has  been  copied  with  various 
degrees  of  skill — his  own  high  level  never, 
by  even  the  most  adept,  having  been 
reached ; but,  naturally,  his  'composition, 
his  schemes  of  colour,  his  breadth  even 
(though  in  that  case  it  has  been  a breadth 
degenerating  into  emptiness)  having  been 
often  mimicked  with  adroitness  and  care. 
I put  this  prominently,  because  in  these 
more  recent  years  of  my  admiring  acquaint- 
ance with  Cotman’s  labours,  the  tasteful 
purchaser  has  sought  his  work,  and  has. 


178  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


not  seldom  I think,  been  furnished  with 
that  which  is  only  passable  imitation  of  it. 
As  to  his  oil  painting,  already,  in  comparing 
him  with  Crome,  it  has  been  said,  or 
suggested,  that  there  was  very  little  of  that. 
In  high  places,  not  all  is  his  that  is  assigned 
to  him. 

Young  Cotman’ s father,  able  to  retire  in 
his  later  life  to  a villa  at  Thorpe — a river- 
side villa  with  something  elegant  about  its 
garden,  of  which  Cotman  more  than  once 
made  use — Cot  man’s  father,  it  is  evident, 
though  he  never  endowed  Cotman  richly, 
offered  no  serious  opposition  to  the  lad’s 
determination  for  a career  of  Art.  So 
Cotman  studied  in  London — it  may  be  not 
very  regularly,  but  still  studied.  At 
eighteen  years  of  age,  it  is  recorded,  he  had 
something  accepted  at  the  Royal  Academy, 
whose  standard  for  work  in  Water-Colour 
has  never  been  exacting.  Afterwards — 

for  some  few  years,  it  would  seem — he 
wintered  in  London,  and,  in  summer, 
wandered  in  the  country.  But  in  1806, 
ivhen  twenty-four  years  old,  he  settled 
down  in  Norwich,  and,  three  years  later, 
married  Anne  Miles,  daughter  of  a farmer 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  179 


at  Felbrigg.  From  1812  to  1823,  he  lived 
chiefly  at  Yarmouth — going  three  times  to 
the  North  of  France,  however,  on  the  advice 
of  Dawson  Turner,  the  antiquary,  or 
actually  in  his  company.  “ Architectural 
Antiquities  of  Normandy  ” (1822)  was  the 
result  of  these  visits — a book,  of  course,  of 
definite  value,  though,  artistically  speaking, 
far  less  characteristic  and  attractive  than 
the  soft-ground  etchings  of  much  force 
and  suavity  and  charm,  which,  as  late 
in  his  career  as  1838,  Cotman  issued  as  his 
“ Liber  Studiorum.’’  His  second  residence 
as  householder  at  Norwich  lasted  from  1823 
to  1834,  and  in  the  last-named  year  he 
went  to  London — first,  temporarily,  to 
Gerrard  street ; then  to  Hunter  Street, 
Brunswick  Square,  for  his  King’s  College 
labours  ; and  in  Hunter  Street,  in  July, 
1842,  he  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  dull 
suburban  cemetery  behind  St.  John’s  Wood 
Chapel — within  sound,  now,  of  the  cheers 
from  “ Lord’s  ” and  the  screech  of  the 
Metropolitan  Railway. 

The  extraordinarily  sensitive  tempera- 
ment of  Cotman — who  had  no  such 
“ staying  power  ” as  that  which  has  been 


180  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


possessed  by  giants  of  Art:  by  Titian, 
Turner,  Ingres,  for  instance — ensured  him  a 
life  eventful  by  its  rapid  succession  of  occa- 
sions for  pleasure  and  for  pain  ; and  so  from 
joy  and  elation,  and  the  open  air  and  sun- 
shine of  the  spirit,  Cotman  passed  often  into 
caverns  of  gloom.  There  is  record  of  both 
these  phases.  Cheery  letters  to  his  son, 
Miles  Edmund — at  Norwich  at  that  time — 
express,  sometimes  humorously,  the  satis- 
faction he  had  in  living  with  his  equals,  in 
opportunities  of  intercourse  with  such  as 
were  really  his  kind.  Again,  melancholy 
letters,  full  of  the  profoundest  depression, 
display  the  other  mood,  and  hint  even  at 
its  causes.  Reading  them,  we  are  again  in 
the  key  of  comparatively  early  letters 
written  from  Yarmouth,  to  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Gunn  : “ My  views  in  life,”  he  had  said, 
then,  “ are  blasted.  I sink  under  repeated, 
constant  exertion.”  And  Dawson  Turner 
— much  about  that  time — had  been  kindly 
and  earnestly  interested  in  putting  Cotman’s 
money  affairs  upon  a better  footing.  For 
a time  things  went  more  smoothly  ; but 
much  of  his  life  was  struggle.  At  length, 
from  Hunter  Street,  to  his  son  again  : “ It 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  181 


was  my  wish,  it  was  my  duty,  to  paint  for 
your  sake  when  you  were  here  ; but  I could 
not — I was  ill  in  body,  and  spiritless.  I am 
not  quite  well,  but  better.”  The  last 
autumn  of  his  life,  going  down  to  Norwich, 
in  the  dark  days  that  precede  Winter,  when 
rains  had  placed  the  country  under  water, 
and  low  skies  still  hung  over  the  drowned 
fields  and  the  tops  of  the  willows,  he  made 
with  unabated  power  certain  sketches  in 
charcoal.  One  of  them  is  “ The  Wold 
Afloat  ” — a drawing  scarcely  less  a master- 
piece, in  its  own  rapid,  economic  way,  than 
the  severe  and  solemn  “ Breaking  the  Clod.” 
It  is  one  of  the  many  noble  and  typical 
designs  which  passed,  two  or  three  years 
since,  into  the  British  Museum,  from  the 
hands  of  Mr.  James  Reeve,  of  Norwich. 

Breadth  was  the  characteristic  of 
Cotman’s  earlier,  as  well  as  of  his  later, 
production,  whatever  was  the  medium  in 
which  he  laboured  ; and  grace  and  dis- 
tinction, elegance  and  style,  not  disregarded 
at  the  first — as  a wan  “ Byland,”  of  1803 
is  itself  enough  to  show — came,  before  the 
last,  to  be  with  him  a more  constant  pre- 
occupation. But  then,  as  time  went  on, 


182  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Cot  man's  schemes  of  colour  became  more 
audacious,  more  violent,  and  their  result 
less  certain  ; so  that  elegance  of  compo- 
sition and  form  told  often  less  potently — 
were,  in  a measure,  neutralised.  My 
“ Bishopgate  Bridge,"  which,  like  a 
“ Mousehold  Heath  " that  was  Mr.  Reeve’s, 
and  is  now  at  the  British  Museum,  is,  I 
think,  extremely  typical  of  Cotman’s 
straightforward  strength ; it  has  in  it 
also — has  in  it  in  a greater  degree, 
perhaps,  than  “ Mousehold  Heath  ’’ — 
dignity,  balance.  Simple,  as  are  its  ele- 
ments, it  may  be  better  composed.  Both 
drawings — massive  and  forcible — are  of 
about  the  period  of  1810.  For  the  pre- 
dominance of  elegance — I would  even  say 
stateliness,  as  well  as  for  the  intrusion  of 
violent  colour,  we  must  wait  a good  deal 
longer ; though  an  admirable  “ Chis- 
wick,"— Sion  House,  Mr.  Loftie  kindly 
tells  me  that  it  really  is — its  lawn  sloping 
to  the  river,  gives  at  no  late  date  the  grace, 
without  crudity  of  hue. 

Quite  early  architectural  drawings — 
generally  Norwich  church  interiors — are  of 
the  soberest  and  most  seductive  execution  : 


THE  NORWICH  MASTERS  183 


economical,  simple.  Great  contrasts, 
striking  effects  in  colour  and  tone,  with  a 
certain  massiveness  never  in  such  work 
forgotten,  are  characteristic  of  the  sea- 
pieces  of  Cot  man’s  middle  time — the  years 
when  he  lived  at  Yarmouth.  “ Golden 
Twickenham  ” has  the  whole  of  his  charm 
of  Style — the  stateliness  that  was  his,  in 
some  of  his  happiest,  most  self-possessed 
hours.  And  if  the  “ Blue  Afternoon 
which,  like  the  “ Golden  Twickenham,”  is 
at  the  Turner  House,  at  Penarth — has  in  it 
a touch  of  exaggeration,  it  is  exaggeration 
conscious,  intentional — it  is  emphasis, 
rather.  It  was  done  with  a purpose,  and 
the  purpose  was  attained.  The  British 
Museum’s — or  is  it  Mr.  J.  L.  Roget’s  ? — less 
“ pronounced  ” version  of  the  same  theme  is 
more  lightly  radiant,  daintier.  It  is  smaller, 
too.  It  speaks  of  an  execution  smaller,  more 
precise — it  speaks  of  a different  mood. 

And  Mood  is  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  Cotman — the  mood  of  woman  or  poet. 
He  was  equipped,  of  course,  for  most 
diverse  labours,  by  his  firm  and  well-drilled 
talent.  But  it  is  to  a nature  receptive  at 
all  its  pores — played  on  by  scene  and  by 


184  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


circumstance — responsive  to  so  many 
appeals — that  the  Collector  of  to-day,  turn- 
ing over  these  drawings  of  grace  and  of 
strength,  owes  very  much  of  the  variety, 
and  most  of  the  fascination,  of  Cotman's 
flexible,  ecstatic,  dignified  Art. 


XVII 

THOMAS  COLLIER 

Fourteen  years  have  passed  since  the 
grave  closed  over  the  mortal  part  of 
Thomas  Collier.  His  uneventful  life  may 
have  had  no  need  to  be  chronicled — we  are 
free  at  least  to  consider  a little  the  charm 
and  characteristics  of  his  Art. 

In  his  later  years,  Collier  now  and  then 
painted  in  Oil ; but  of  all  the  volume  of 
his  production,  nine-tenths  was  accom- 
plished in  Water-Colour.  Therefore  he  is 
less  the  successor  of  Constable  than  the 
successor  of  David  Cox.  And  with  David 
Cox  he  has  often  been  compared ; not 
alone  by  reason  of  his  choice  of  a medium, 
or  by  reason  of  his  choice  of  a theme — quite 
as  much,  I suppose,  by  reason  of  a certain 
obvious  similarity  in  the  essentials  of  treat- 
ment. Both  men  possessed,  in  most  un- 
usual measure,  the  secret  of  wise  choice 

185 


186  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


and  wise  elimination.  Economy  of  means, 
decision  of  hand,  belonged  to  both  alike. 
To  both  had  been  vouchsafed  a noble  vision 
of  quite  homely  scenes. 

So  much  for  the  similarities.  It  is  worth 
spending  a moment  in  understanding  and 
defining  the  differences  ; for,  holding  well 
in  one's  mind  the  points  of  likeness  and 
divergence,  one  should  get  more  readily  at 
the  individuality  of  Collier.  And  in  this 
connection,  it  is  well  to  set  down,  first,  how 
differently  the  two  men  fared  as  to  the 
length  of  their  days  ; and  next — and  more 
important — at  what  widely  separated 
epochs  in  the  lives  of  each,  each  “ came 
into  his  own  ” — obtained,  that  is  to  say,  in 
Art  the  means  for  complete  self-expression. 
Cox  lived  to  be  seventy-six  ; Collier  hung 
on  to  Life  in  middle  age  by  but  a slender 
thread — I remember  him  slow  of  movement, 
sad,  silent,  delicate,  refined — and  he  died 
at  fifty-one. 

Now  if  Cox  had  died  even  at  sixty,  he 
would  not  have  been  the  artist  we  know — 
he  would  not  have  emerged  from  timidity  ; 
he  would  have  been  careful  and  exact ; he 
would  not  have  been  inspired  and  vehement. 


THOMAS  COLLIER 


187 


The  genius  of  David  Cox — not  his  accept- 
able talent — came  to  him  in  his  old  age. 
It  is  not  generally  recognised,  but  it  is  true, 
certainly,  that  all  that  is  most  precious  in 
his  work  belongs  to  the  last  sixteen  years 
of  his  long  life — from  1843  to  1859.  I have 
said  this  before.  He  had  time  to  prepare, 
and  time  even  to  dally. 

Collier,  upon  the  other  hand,  had  need 
to  be  himself  with  promptitude,  and  was 
himself,  in  the  fullest  sense,  by  the  day 
that  he  was  thirty.  It  is  as  if  some  private 
warning  had  been  conveyed  to  him  betimes 
— the  curtain  would  fall  early  : the  play 
must  be  played.  A very  small  proportion 
of  the  work  of  his  hand  belongs  to  a period 
which  we  can  call  immature — a very  small 
proportion  belongs  to  a period  in  which  it 
might  not  even  be  profoundly  characteristic. 
To  him  pertained,  almost  from  the  begin- 
ning, freedom  of  manner,  largeness  of  vision 
and  of  touch. 

I have  long  held — and  am  to-day  far 
from  alone  in  holding — that  Collier  had  a 
subtlety  of  perception  and  execution  yet 
greater  than  that  of  the  master  with  whom 
I have  compared  him.  And  the  range  of 


188  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


his  themes — of  those  that  he  could  treat 
most  brilliantly — was  at  least  as  extensive. 
There  has  never  been  a Water-Colour 
painter  more  independent  of  the  presence, 
in  the  landscape  before  him,  of  visible 
majesty  or  of  romantic  charm.  And  no 
one  has  been  less  topographical.  He 
painted — and  more  particularly  in  the 
vivid  sketches  which  are  the  very  crown 
of  his  achievement,  and  by  which,  I think, 
most  of  all,  will  another  generation  judge 
and  praise  him — he  painted,  I conceive,  not 
so  much  places  as  the  spirit  of  places  : and 
not  so  much  the  spirit  of  the  place  as  the 
mood  of  the  particular  hour.  He  painted 
Weather.  Quietly  reticent  in  the  indication 
of  its  serenity — able  enough  recorder  of 
pearly  air  over  a league  of  summer  sea — 
he  was  yet  at  his  greatest,  not  when  the 
day  was  Hine’s,  but  when  it  was 
Constable’s  : a broken  sky  ; charged  rain 
clouds  that  now  scattered  onwards,  hurried 
by  wind  ; glints  of  sunshine,  glints  of  blue. 
And  under  the  heavens  so  dramatic  and 
interesting,  sometimes  great  mountains, 
drawn  massively  ; but  oftener  the  common 
and,  a Heath,  purple  and  black  in  the  late 


THOMAS  COLLIER 


18£ 


Autumn,  or  the  Downs,  golden  and  golden- 
brown  in  mid-September,  or  only  fields  and 
open  roads,  a farmstead,  white  gates  and 
the  hedgerow.  Whatever  is  there,  free  air 
is  there.  The  country  of  Thomas  Collier  is 
a tonic  to  the  citizen. 

This  painter  of  England  and  of  English 
skies  found  favour  in  France.  Valued 
member,  of  course,  of  his  own  “ Institute  ” 
— the  Royal  Institute  of  Painters  in  Water 
Colour — official  recognition  (“  decoration/' 
that  is)  came  to  him  in  France  alone.  The 
Land  that  understands  all  Art — the  People 
who  are  ready  to  receive  it — made  him  a 
Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  They 
admired  the  truth,  the  charm,  the  lightly- 
worn  learning,  the  technique's  unerring 
decisiveness.  And  so,  promptly,  and  with 
comparatively  limited  opportunity  of 
estimating  him,  they  saw  he  must  have 
precedence — they  motioned  him  to  “ the 
velvet  of  the  sward."  In  other  ways,  some 
sixty  years  before,  they  had  done  the  same 
for  Constable.  And  their  choice,  each  time, 
was  a right  one.  For  Collier — I have  been 
daring  to  say  it  during  a dozen  years,  when- 
ever the  occasion  allowed  me  to — was  not 


190  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


a clever  painter,  but  a great  one.  Con- 
noisseurs, it  may  be — a few  of  them  at 
least,  who  have  examined  for  themselves — 
have  not  wondered  at  the  epithet ; and 
as,  lately,  to  a much  larger  English  public, 
through  exhibition  of  a great  body  of  his 
work,  the  chance  was  for  the  first  time  given 
of  knowing  how  unfaltering  is  his  effort, 
how  sustained  his  excellence — the  simple 
and  retiring  man,  struggling  for  years,  as  I 
remember,  with  Death  as  well  as  Art — even 
that  larger  English  public  is  tending  to 
accord  him,  without  cavil  or  questioning, 
his  place  amongst  the  Masters. 


XVIII 

PICTURES  BY  ORCHARDSON 

Of  all  the  instances  which  recent  Art  affords 
of  the  possibility  of  treating  contemporary 
themes  with  serious  beauty,  one  of  the  most 
notable  is  Orchardson's  picture,  a “ Mariage 
de  Convenances  It  is  something  to  have 
dealt  with  artificial  light,  even  though  it 
be  but  the  mellow  glow  of  a moderator 
lamp,  with  the  delicacy  that  is  therein 
displayed.  But  it  is  more  to  have  felt  the 
picturesqueness,  the  true  serviceableness 
for  designer  and  colourist,  of  that  which  is 
offered  by  the  modern  apartment.  I admit 
it  is  the  apartment  of  the  rich.  Fine  glass 
glistens  on  the  dining-table,  and  these 
dessert  dishes  are  of  the  green  of  precious 
Sevres.  Still,  there  is  the  lamp  with  its 
crimson  hanging-shade.  There  is  the  butler 
of  to-day,  and  to-day's  dress-coat.  And, 
save  for  the  spot  of  blankest  white  on  one 
n— (23x4)  191 


192  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


shirt  front,  nothing  is  out  of  harmony. 
Nay,  such  a negative  phrase  is  not  enough 
— the  fact  is,  that  the  picture  gleams  and 
glows  with  noble  colour. 

But  Orchardson,  whether  painting  the 
Eighteenth  Century  or  the  Nineteenth 
— the  “ Queen  of  the  Swords,”  or  the 
“ Mariage  de  Convenance  ” — has  always 
been  an  artist.  Comparatively  lately 
has  he  become  a dramatist  also.  The 
“ Mariage  de  Convenance  ” must  be 
intensely  true.  A haughty,  sulky,  self- 
willed  beauty  of  eight-and-twenty  — a 
large  blonde  thing  of  stately  figure,  but 
repellant  expression — has  married  a man 
not  only  thirty  years  older,  but  ignoble, 
exhausted,  in  all  respects  uninteresting. 
And  he  is  sick  of  a sulkiness  he  had  not 
bargained  for,  and  she  is  dully  angry  at  a 
premature  indifference  she  had  not  fore- 
seen. The  moment  approaches  when  she 
sweeps  to  the  door,  and  for  to-night  at  all 
events  there  is  an  end  of  the  thrice  weary 
tete-a-tete.  Out  of  his  presence  she  may 
sulk  a little  less,  and  he — when  she  is  gone 
— may  see  the  sky  of  his  world  a little  less 
heavy. 


PICTURES  BY  ORCHARDSON  193 


Orchardson’s  sometimes  are  the  last 
refinements  of  colour.  Seldom  has  that 
been  shown  more  completely  than  in  his 
“ Voltaire  ” ; though  I cannot  but  hold  the 
" Voltaire  ” to  be  marred  by  the  rage  of  its 
hero,  the  angry  wit  and  the  wronged  poet. 
For  who  that  looks  upon  the  picture  can 
understand  it  for  himself  ? Here  is  a 
company  of  graceful  folk,  French  nobles  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century,  who  have  met 
pleasantly  at  a pretty  banquet — the  early 
dinner  that  was  less  intimate  than  the 
souper  of  the  day — and  have  got  as  far  as 
the  dessert.  That  is  visible  and  charming. 
But  what  is  the  place,  in  the  picture's 
natural  story,  of  the  white-faced  gentleman 
who  rages  at  the  side,  and  whom  they 
would  desire  to  soothe  or  somehow  to 
silence  ? Even  that  measure  of  intelligence 
upon  which  an  artist,  in  every  art,  has  a 
right  to  count,  is  unequal  to  the  discovery 
of  such  a series  of  facts  as  that  this  white- 
faced gentleman  is  Voltaire  when  he  was 
young,  and  that  Voltaire  had  been  sum- 
moned to  the  street-door  below,  and  when 
he  got  there  had  found  it  was  for  nothing 
better  than  a flogging,  and  that  having 


194  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


come  upstairs  again  to  his  host  and  his  fine 
companions,  he  is  beseeching  them  with 
frantic  gesture  to  take  up  his  cause.  All 
that  is  very  interesting,  but  who  is  supposed 
to  interpret  it  ? The  subject  of  the  picture 
halts  between  true  Genre  and  the  old- 
fashioned  painting  of  History.  But  the 
old-fashioned  painting  of  history  was 
concerned,  not  with  some  out-of-the-way 
anecdote,  but  with  incidents  known  to  the 
world,  and  presumably  recognisable.  To 
History-painting  the  picture  could  therefore 
hardly  pretend.  But  it  might  have  belonged 
to  true  Genre,  if  Voltaire,  or  his  rage,  had 
been  omitted.  Exquisite  it  is  now,  in 
composition,  in  style,  in  grace,  in  painting. 
Nobody  can  write  or  think  of  it  without 
being  grateful  for  the  high  taste,  the  fine 
accomplishment.  Yet  it  might  have  been 
in  its  own  way  perfect,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  Genre  pictures  of  recent  times,  had 
it  sought  to  illustrate  only  the  manner  and 
the  graces  of  the  age,  and  not  the  particular 
story.  As  it  is,  it  is  more  nobly  painted, 
but  less  prudently  conceived,  than  either 
“ A Social  Eddy  ” or  “ Queen  of  the 
Swords.”  The  art  is  brilliant ; the 


PICTURES  BY  ORCHARDSON  195 


invention  is  not  wise.  It  is  a great,  but  yet 
a faulty  chapter  in  Orchardson’s  work — 
the  work  of  a Scotsman  who  continually 
reminds  us  of  what  Scotland  has  received 
from  France — in  whom  is  recognised  that 
strain  of  Gallic  grace  which  from  the  days 
of  Mary  Stuart  to  our  own  has  sweetened 
now  and  again,  and  twice  refined,  the 
strength  of  Scottish  art. 


XIX 


CHARLES  KEENE 

Charles  Keene  began  to  draw  for  Punch 
in  the  year  1850 — when  he  was  twenty- 
seven  years  old — and  he  worked  for  it 
until  within  some  few  months  of  his  death 
in  1890.  It  is  to  be  wished  that  an  artist 
so  fertile,  so  inventive,  and  so  deeply 
original,  had  been  appreciated  more  warmly 
by  the  generation  he  served.  He  had,  of 
course,  success  ; but  it  was  not  a success 
proportioned  to  the  measure  of  his  genius. 
During  at  least  a quarter  of  a century,  the 
general  public  rated  as  far  above  him 
several  artists  who  were  less  fine  observers 
and  less  economical  draughtsmen — Cruik- 
shank  for  instance,  who,  clever  as  he  was, 
was  nothing  in  comparison  with  Keene. 
Since  Charles  Keene's  death,  however, 
there  has  gone  up,  from  those  who  know  at 
least,  a chorus  of  praise,  the  volume  of 
which  must  have  struck  with  some  effect 

196 


CHARLES  KEENE 


197 


upon  the  public  ear.  Keene  never  went  out 
of  his  way  to  attract  attention  to  himself. 
In  an  age  of  advertising,  he  remained  un- 
advertised and,  in  his  art,  one  was  con- 
fronted rarely  with  the  caricature  that 
“ tells  ” at  once — continually,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  the  restrained  comedy  of  which 
the  delicate,  suggestive  humour  is  durable 
in  its  effect. 

In  saying  this  I am  far,  of  course,  from 
hinting  that  Charles  Keene's  drawing  was 
obscure,  or  at  first  unintelligible.  It  was 
full,  rather,  of  the  simplicity  which  is  the 
result  of  the  most  thoroughly  assimilated 
learning.  But  over  and  above  its  evident 
drollery  there  was  in  it  a charm  of  artistry, 
slower  to  be  fathomed  or  exhausted.  Week 
after  week  the  treasures  of  observation 
amassed  by  the  artist  were  poured  out  upon 
his  drawing-paper  ; and  so  what  is  prac- 
tically the  history  of  the  Lower  Middle 
Class  in  England  came  to  be  written,  with 
as  much  fulness  and  with  as  faultless  a 
penetration  as  if  the  historian  had  been 
Balzac.  It  would  be  absurd  to  single  out 
for  detailed  comment  any  one  or  two  of  the 
sketches  of  character — of  landladies  and 


198  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


cabmen,  sportsmen  and  country  doctors, 
maids  of  all  work  and  second-rate  tavern 
waiters — for  in  one  sense,  as  Turner  said 
of  his  “ Liber  Studiorum,"  “ What  is  the 
use  of  them  but  together  ? " It  is  as  a 
whole  that  they  display  Keene's  mind  and 
illustrate  his  range.  Yet,  in  another  sense, 
each  has  value.  There  is  not  one  amongst 
them  that  does  not  satisfactorily  attest  the 
presence  of  this  or  that  great  quality— 
either  the  artist's  genial  understanding, 
or  the  assured  economy  of  his  means, 
or  his  amazing  sense  of  movement,  or 
the  mental  subtlety  which  gave  so  wide 
a range  to  people  professedly  of  one  class,  or 
the  significance  he  could  bestow  on  a 
London  street  corner  or  on  a “ cabmen's 
rest,"  or  the  delightful  expressiveness  of  his 
landscape  backgrounds.  Keene  did  not 
follow  in  his  work  the  changes  of  costume. 
Twenty  years  would  pass — there  would  not 
be  much  difference  in  the  shawl  or  the 
bonnet.  But  he  followed,  from  moment  to 
moment,  the  very  subtlest  changes  in 
human  expression,  and,  in  Art,  the  passage 
of  time  must  only  confirm  his  occupation  of 
his  eminent  place. 


XX 


PARIS  AND  FULLEYLOVE 

John  Fulleylove  and  Paris  have  come 
together — in  a series  of  drawings.  It  was 
a conjunction  devoutly  to  be  wished  for, 
and  if  you  happen  to  have  in  any  way 
promoted  it,  you  may  have  something  of 
the  complacency  with  which,  in  general 
Society,  you  watch  the  commerce  of 
two  people  whom  you  have  introduced 
fortunately,  and  who  have  “ got  on.” 

For,  bold  as  it  may  be  to  say  it,  at  this 
late  hour  of  the  artistic  day,  Paris  has 
wanted  Mr.  Fulleylove  ; and  none  the  less 
because  he  was  a stranger  and  a sojourner,  a 
guest,  and  not  in  his  home.  Too  prolonged 
and  certain  a familiarity  with  city  or  with 
landscape,  breeds  in  many  of  us,  a dulness, 
an  inertness,  a stupidity  almost,  in  respect 
to  them.  They  are  no  longer  seen , if  they 
are  not  vividly  felt.  They  have  become  a 

199 


200  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


conventional  background — an  effaced  back- 
ground, as  it  were — to  some  life  of  your 
own,  perhaps,  of  which  the  interest  is  all- 
absorbing  ; while  that  which  they  really 
wanted  was  to  have  a foreground  import- 
ance, such  as  belongs  to  them  chiefly  in 
the  eye  of  the  unoccupied,  or  the  not 
preoccupied,  stranger. 

Who  is  it  that  has  painted  London  ? 
De  Nittis,  perhaps,  who  came  to  it — and 
wondered  at  it — from  France.  And  who 
has  etched  London,  if  not  indeed  Whistler  ? 
— and  he,  it  may  be,  best  of  all  in  the  plates 
that  were  wrought  by  him  when  the  Thames 
and  Rotherhithe,  Chelsea  and  Shadwell,were 
new  to  the  keen-sighted  eyes  of  his  youth. 

But  another  qualification  than  that  of 
coming  to  Paris  as  an  interested  stranger 
with  a paint-box,  was  assuredly  Fulley- 
love’s,  when,  after  many  dealings  with 
Versailles  and  Hampton  Court,  Siena, 
Venice,  Oxford,  “ Petrarch's  country,"  he 
set  his  steps  towards  the  “ Ville  Lumiere  ” 
— settled  himself  under  the  shadow  of  St. 
Roch,  and  drew  the  Paris  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  Paris  of  To-day.  For  Fulley- 
love,  more  than  many  artists  one  knows. 


PARIS  AND  FULLEYLOVE  201 


amongst  those  who  concern  themselves 
best  with  the  aspects  and  architecture  of 
Cities,  is  not  content  on  the  one  hand  with 
record  dry  and  correct,  nor  on  the  other 
with  visions  vaguely  picturesque.  His 
sense  of  construction  is  so  firm  and  fair,  his 
grasp  of  his  subjects  so  energetic  and 
comprehensive,  that  he  is  able  to  take  a 
well-nigh  equal  pleasure  in  scenes  towards 
some  of  which  his  brethren  would  turn  with 
delight,  and  from  others  of  which  they 
would  withdraw  with  indifference  or  dis- 
taste. Paris — any  great  capital — is  more 
than  a city  : it  is  a world ; and  it  requires  a 
man  not  of  small  nature  to  sympathise  with 
the  many  phases  of  its  life.  By  his  capa- 
city to  accept  rather  than  to  reject — to  take 
the  modern  with  the  mediaeval,  and  the 
Paris  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth(Voltaire’s  Paris) 
with  the  Paris  of  the  Restoration  (Balzac’s 
Paris)— a man  unconsciously  gives  his 
own  intellectual  and  artistic  measure ; 
and  it  had  often  seemed  to  me  that  Fulley- 
love’s  robustness  and  tolerance  would  fit 
him  well  to  deal  with  the  life  and  archi- 
tecture of  a place  three-fourths  of  which 
can  but  stink  in  the  nostrils  of  the  purist — 


202  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


its  charm  and  interest  lost  for  ever  to  the 
fanatic  of  Art,  the  Prae-Raphaelite  weakling 
who  prattles  of  a “ bad  period.”  Imagine 
the  Church  of  St.  Sulpice,  for  instance — 
those  towers  of  Servandoni's — only  one  of 
them  Servandoni’s  perhaps — under  which 
were  passed  not  the  least  happy  days  of  the 
youth  of  Renan — imagine  the  place  gazed 
at  by  the  baffled  eyes  of  the  aesthetic 
draughtsmen  who  “ think  by  proxy/'  and 
to  whom  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth 
Centuries,  and  the  later  Renaissance  itself, 
are  all  accursed ! To  know  Paris,  you 
must  be  charmed  by  the  elegant — not  only 
stirred  by  the  archaic  or  thrilled  by  the 
weird. 

Nor  must  you  want  the  elegant  alone, 
for  the  place  is  so  much  more  than  a show- 
place— the  holiday  haunt  of  enquiring 
Englishmen  when  the  House  rises  for 
Easter  ; the  happy  hunting  ground  of  the 
Brazilian  millionaire.  It  has  its  work-a- 
day  aspects  : it  is  itself  the  expression  of 
all  the  vivid  life  and  changeful  character 
of  such  a gifted  and  such  a practical  people. 
“ Trade  is  Art,  and  Art  Philosophy,  in 
Paris,"  said  the  writer  of  Aurora  Leigh , 


PARIS  AND  FULLEYLOVE  203 


and,  in  that  saying,  sacrificed  no  truth  to 
the  neatness  of  the  epigram.  Above  all 
things,  to  paint  Paris,  you  must  understand 
and  rejoice  that  Paris  is  no  dead  city — no 
Bruges,  no  Mantua — no  monument  of 
stones,  but  alive — alive  with  its  Eiffel 
Tower  and  its  bateaux  mouches , as  much  as 
with  its  Theatre  Frangais  and  Visconti's 
Fountain  of  Moliere. 

Again,  to  an  architectural  painter  of 
Fulleylove’s  particular  bent,  Paris  appeals 
not  so  much  by  the  beauty  of  the  occasional 
detail — the  Sainte  Chapelle,  if  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  is  what  is  wanted,  or,  if  the 
Nineteenth,  Saint  Augustin,  white  and 
domed,  and  the  “ Four  Quarters  of  the 
Globe  ” by  Carpeaux,  high  up  towards  the 
Observatory — not  so  much  by  these  does 
it  appeal  as  by  its  grace  of  ensemble , its 
strange  unity  in  all  its  variety  (the  tradition 
of  architectural  beauty  having  never  been 
lost),  its  great  vistas,  endless  perspectives — 
now  the  River,  now  the  Luxembourg 
Gardens  stretching  out  to  the  Observatoire 
— its  mien,  noble  and  gay  ; its  fascinating 
way  of  “ composing,”  grouping  itself,  like  a 
model  exquisite  in  figure,  exquisite  in  pose. 


204  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Paris,  it  may  be  noted,  is  not  amazingly 
full  of  colour — France  is  not,  generally 
speaking,  in  comparison  with  England. 
But  Paris,  like  all  France,  is  full  of  light ; 
light  and  space  are  two  of  its  charms  ; and 
so  it  must  be  painted  blithely,  flexibly  as 
well  as  firmly.  It  would  reveal  hardly  one 
of  its  secrets  to  the  student  of  the 
Middle  Age. 

I have  not  felt  for  my  own  part,  that  Mr. 
Fulleylove — who  has  been  to  so  many  places 
— has  been  everywhere  with  equal  success. 
Happy  at  Perugia  and  at  Florence,  and 
breathing  an  almost  native  air  (for,  if 
English,  he  is  essentially  Classic)  by  the 
Amphitheatre  at  Arles  and  the  Roman 
Baths  at  Nimes,  his  brilliant  and  decisive 
talent  was  a little  too  positive,  perhaps,  for 
a fitting  dream  of  Venice — I doubt  if  he  was 
really  in  sympathy  with  that  slight  strain 
of  the  fantastic  and  unreal  which,  not  on 
moonlit  nights  alone,  nor  only  in  the  dark 
and  stealthy  gondola,  is  indescribably  a 
part  of  Venetian  beauty.  But  Paris,  again, 
suits  him  : Paris  in  nearly  all  the  range 
of  it,  he  can  forcibly  and  vividly,  as  well  as 
learnedly,  express — from  the  “ Devils  of 


PARIS  AND  FULLEYLOVE  205 


Notre  Dame  ” to  the  Tuileries  Gardens,  and 
from  St.  Etienne-du-Mont  to  the  wings  of 
the  44  Moulin.” 

I wish  only  that  in  his  Paris  work 
Fulleylove  had  restrained  himself  a little 
less  absolutely  to  the  medium  of  his 
customary  practice.  The  interest  of  his 
Water-Colour  is  allowed.  Even  to  those 
who  take  small  note  of  his  virtue  of  Style  or 
of  his  simplicity  and  genuineness  of  execu- 
tion, that  is  at  least  obvious.  But  Fulley- 
love is  never  really  more  entirely  an  artist 
than  he  is  in  his  pencil  work  ; and,  in  one's 
mind’s  eye,  one  sees  with  certainty  the 
44  collector  ” of  the  near  Future  gloating 
over  a cherished  portfolio,  of  subjects 
chiefly  architectural,  and  prizing,  just  as 
highly  as  any  Prout  or  any  Edridge,  the 
broad  and  masculine  unmannered  pencil- 
drawings  of  the  artist  who,  with  the  black 
and  greyish  silver  of  the  lead-pencil,  has 
put  before  us  the  Jacobean  affluence  or 
Georgian  dignity  of  44  Jesus,”  and  the 
arches  and  pilasters,  the  stalls  and  wooden 
angels,  of  St.  Peter’s  at  Perugia. 

But  then  again,  Fulleylove  would  not  be 
an  artist  at  all,  if  he  did  not  see  to  it  that 


206  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


between  material  and  method  there  was 
fitting  accord.  And  few  there  are  who  will 
deny  that  this,  and  much  besides,  has  been 
secured,  in  the  Water-Colours  which 
chronicle,  with  such  a range  of  sympathy, 
and  with  so  unfailing  a charm,  much  at 
least  of  the  changeful  and  vivacious  beauty 
of  the  Paris  of  to-day. 


XXI 

CAMERON 

A young  man  still,  with  an  important 
Future  almost  certainly  before  him,  Mr. 
D.  Y.  Cameron  has  already  a more  than 
creditable  Past.  He  is  a distinct  personality. 
In  a measure — in  a limited  measure  only — 
he  has  expressed  himself  in  Painting.  In 
Etching  he  is  more  clearly  and  powerfully 
revealed.  For  sixteen  years  at  least  he 
has  held  the  etching  needle.  His  work  has 
won  its  way  gradually — it  has  won  its  way 
as  he  has  himself  developed  ; and  I,  at 
least,  who,  rightly  or  wrongly,  looked  on 
him  ten  years  ago  as  a man  alike  of  great 
parts  and  of  many  deficiencies,  look  on  him 
to-day  as  one  of  our  modern  Masters. 

Fully  two  hundred  Etchings  Cameron 
has  now  executed.  He  is  not  proud  of  all 
of  them.  He  is  indeed  so  very  modest  in 
judging  some  of  the  things  that  are  his 

15— '2314)  207 


208  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


triumphs,  that  I a little  doubt  his  reason- 
ableness from  time  to  time,  in  condemning 
what  he  calls  his  failures.  Still,  failures  he 
has,  and  some  of  them  are  in  circulation, 
and  so  are  some  of  his  immaturities — they 
must  be  taken  account  of.  Fortunately 
there  remain — and  of  late  years  especially 
there  have  accumulated — a greater  number 
of  coppers  creditable  and  distinguished ; 
and  amongst  these  there  are  a score  or 
so  of  plates  to  which,  from  one  cause  or 
another,  the  name  of  “ masterpiece 99 
cannot  in  justice  be  denied. 

Knowing  now,  in  some  rough  fashion, 
what  is  the  array  of  Cameron's  etched  work, 
and  how  one  tends  to  classify  it  in  one's 
mind,  the  Collector — who  knows  no  doubt 
already  something  of  the  artist's  subjects — 
will  enquire,  generally,  as  to  the  etching's 
rarity  or  commonness.  The  matter  must 
affect  him  very  much.  And  the  answer 
should  be  reassuring  to  him.  Scarcely 
anything  of  Cameron's  can  ever  be  common. 

As  an  incentive  to  the  Collector — as  a 
joy  to  his  human  feebleness — I know  of 
nothing  more  stimulating  than  this  fact. 
May  I irreverently  suggest  that  it  is  about 


CAMERON 


209 


as  stimulating  as  the  beauty  or  majesty  of 
the  performance.  Cold — I have  noticed — 
is  the  Collector,  in  presence  of  the  beauty 
that  is  upon  the  street.  The  prints  of 
Cameron — any  particular  print,  I mean — 
can  belong  but  to  a few.  Many  may 
possess  themselves  of  some  of  his  Etchings  ; 
because  like  Helleu,  Strang,  Legros,  like 
Whistler  and  Seymour  Haden  indeed — not 
to  speak  of  Rembrandt  himself — he  has 
produced  so  many  coppers.  But  there  are 
few  collectors  who  will  ever  be  able  to 
acquire  any  great  mass  of  his  work.  The 
plates,  of  the  good  prints  as  of  the  bad 
prints,  are  nearly  all  of  them  destroyed. 
And  destroyed  after  how  many  impressions 
have  been  taken  ? Two  or  three  dozen  at 
the  most,  generally.  I do  not,  at  present, 
go  into  the  reason  for  this  state  of  things. 
I neither  blame  the  artist  nor  commend 
him  for  it.  I state  the  fact  merely.  And 
these  impressions,  let  it  be  remembered — 
these  few  impressions — like  the  brilliant 
work  of  Mr.  Muirhead  Bone,  issued  on  the 
same  basis,  are  scattered  over  England, 
Scotland,  and  America.  To  form,  a com- 
plete collection  of  the  engraved  work  of 


210  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Cameron  up  to  the  present  time,  has  already 
become  not  a difficult,  but  an  impossible 
task — save,  it  may  be,  for  the  happy  person 
who  may  have  begun  years  ago,  at  the 
beginning.  But  I doubt,  really,  if  there 
exists  such  a person.  Furthermore,  I doubt 
his  supreme  “ happiness/'  if  he  does  exist. 
For,  if  he  is  happy,  he  has  to  be  happy  with 
failures  as  well  as  successes ; with  the  unripe 
and  the  tentative,  as  well  as  the  decisive 
and  accomplished.  No  : the  complete  En- 
graved Work  of  Cameron  can  never,  it 
seems,  be  in  any  one  man's  possession.  Nor 
is  there  any  serious  need  that  it  should  be. 
To  own  an  adequate  representation  of  that 
work — a group  of  pieces  ; ten,  twenty,  even 
thirty  it  may  be — showing  the  various 
range  of  Cameron's  accomplished  en- 
deavour, the  various  facets  of  his  many- 
sided  power  and  charm,  is  all  we  have  the 
right  or  need  to  wish  for,  and  is  certainly 
all  we  shall  attain. 

And  now  to  the  artistic  aspects  of  the 
matter.  These  various  facets  of  a great 
etcher's  talent — we  will  look  at  them  a 
little. 

Cameron  is,  above  all,  an  Etcher  of 


CAMERON 


211 


Architecture — buildings  of  nearly  every 
kind  appeal  to  him — they  present  them- 
selves to  him  as  exercises  for  his  “ line,” — 
yet  more,  as  exercises  for  his  imagination. 
The  spirit  of  Romance  is  his,  profoundly. 
To  him,  a great  Past  speaks.  Yet  I know 
absolutely  no  architectural  Etcher  with 
such  a range  of  sympathy.  Old  and  new 
interest  him  almost  equally  ; and  in  so  far 
as  that  is  so,  he  differs  from  Whistler, 
as  he  differs  from  Meryon,  both  of  whom, 
now  in  this  thing  and  now  in  that,  he 
to  some  slight  extent  recalls.  He  likes, 
genuinely,  every  sort  of  building,  as  a 
dramatic  person  in  life — the  man  who 
ponders  on  his  kind — likes  every  sort  of 
character.  The  quay-sides  of  Greenock 
interest  him  ; the  slums  of  Stirling  and 
Glasgow.  The  grouping  of  thatched 

cottages  round  a stumpy-towered  church 
interests  him,  and  the  wonderful  rhythm 
of  line  in  which  he  places,  or  in  which  he 
contrives  to  surround  them.  See  4 4 A Dutch 
Village.”  The  highly-decorated  interests 
him.  The  fairy-like  Venetian  beauty.  The 
sombre — see  the  “ Loches,”  one  of  the  most 
impressive  of  all  his  recent  performances. 


212  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


The  severe — look  at  “ Siena/'  The  grim 
and  threatening  and  suggestive — behold, 
the  “ Porto  del  Molo,  Genoa/'  or  the  won- 
derful  (t  Newgate  " of  the  London  Set ; a 
print  which  in  its  decision,  firmness,  terrible 
directness,  I pit  against  the  “ Rue  des 
Mauvais  Gargons  " of  Mery  on.  And  then, 
the  pretty  accidents  of  the  Venetian  calle  ; 
light  and  shadow  so  delightfully  patterned, 
and  texture  so  fascinating — see  the  “ Vene- 
tian Street."  But  there  is  enough  of  this 
matter — or  will  be  when  I have  mentioned 
one  other  of  the  Venice  pieces,  and  that 
is  “ The  Rialto,"  which  wants,  perhaps, 
atmosphere,  which  wants  various  planes — 
which,  whether  it  wants  them  or  not,  is  at 
least  without  them — but  which,  again,  is 
a success  in  its  way  ; its  way  this  time  a 
more  formal  and  precise  patterning. 

It  was  never  very  difficult  to  be  interested 
in  Cameron's  realistic,  yet  imaginative 
vision  of  Architecture.  It  took  me  much 
longer  to  in  any  way  appreciate  his  Land- 
scape ; and  I suppose  because  that  com- 
parative absence  of  atmosphere  and  planes, 
which  one  notices  in  certain  of  his  buildings, 
is  noticed  also,  and  is  not  always  easy  to 


CAMERON 


213 


be  reconciled  to,  in  certain  of  his  Landscape 
pieces.  In  a few  of  his  Landscape  pieces  he 
aims  at  delicacy,  refinement  of  gradation, 
transiency  of  atmospheric  effect.  But 
these  are  quite  the  exceptions.  Generally, 
he  aims  at  massiveness — the  solid  structure 
of  the  world.  The  “ Ledaig,”  in  the  rare 
early  State  in  which  alone  I hold  it  to  be 
desirable,  is  an  instance.  Perhaps  the 
“ Rembrandt  Farm  ” is  another.  But  a 
fine  impression  of  “ Border  Towers  ” — the 
plate  was  wrought  as  early  in  Cameron's 
career  as  1894 — still  represents  his  high- 
water  mark  in  Landscape  Art.  Only,  I 
now  discern  in  many  another  study  in  the 
same  department  of  practice,  virtues — and 
a potent  individuality  which  was  not  in 
the  first  place  attractive.  Much  that  we 
look  for  in  Landscape  Etching,  Cameron 
deliberately  discards ; and  we  end  by 
recognising  that  often  the  expression  of 
it  would  have  been  incompatible  with 
the  accomplishment  of  his  peculiar,  of  his 
very  personal,  aim. 

To  close,  I would  draw  the  attention 
of  the  Collector  to  the  essentially  deco- 
rative instinct  of  this  artist.  It  is  visible 


214  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


continually — we  have  already  in  a measure 
considered  it.  But  there  are  pieces  in 
which  one  finds  it  almost  unexpectedly 
pronounced.  In  a portrait,  or  a fancy 
portrait,  there  is  ever  with  Cameron  the 
idea  of  a decorative  disposition  of  line.  To 
this,  other  things  are  sometimes  subordi- 
nated. See  “ Veronica  ” ; prettily  quaint, 
I allow.  See  again,  “ A Dutch  Maiden.” 
Neither  is  a study  of  character.  In  each 
the  face  is  but  a “ motive.”  See,  too, 
“ The  Bridge  of  Sighs  ” — half  fact,  half 
invention.  And  see,  above  all  things,  that 
frank  and  admirable  decoration — it  is 
decoration  and  nothing  else — the  “ Title 
to  the  Italian  Set.”  As  an  ornamentist, 
rich  and  yet  austere,  that  little  plate  alone 
would  give  to  Cameron  some  claim  to  be 
remembered.  And  other  claims  he  has, 
and  in  abundance. 


XXII 


STILL  LIFE 

A minor  cause  which  does  its  part,  at 
least,  in  telling  against  the  satisfactoriness 
of  current  Exhibitions,  is  the  extraor- 
dinarily small  encouragement  bestowed 
upon  Still  Life  and  upon  Flower-painting ; 
save,  indeed,  when  these  proceed  from 
brush  or  pencil  of  an  acknowledged 
master  : a Vollon,  a Fantin,  a Francis 

James.  Half-educated  persons,  whose  chief 
care  is  that  their  taste  shall  have  no  initia- 
tive and  no  independence — that  it  shall  be, 
above  all,  decorously  conventional — would 
permit  themselves  the  regulation  ecstasies 
over  the  modern  realism  of  the  perspiring 
peasant  Bastien  Lepage  or  Lhermitte  ; 
but  would  think  they  had  betrayed  them- 
selves if  they  confessed  to  any  warm 
appreciation  of  unknown  artists'  painting 
of  Still  Life,  or  had  considered  the  lilies  of 
the  field,  how  they  grow. 

215 


216  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


Again,  even  with  regard  to  the  Masters. 
“ We  can  have  the  fruit,  the  silver  goblet, 
the  roses,  zinnias,  and  azaleas — the  actual 
things/ * they  say,  “ the  things  themselves, 
which  is  better.”  But  they  forget  that  in 
the  picture,  wise  men  have  the  things — 
their  charm  at  least — and  the  Art  besides 
the  things — the  painter’s  own  great  way 
of  looking  at  and  rendering  them — a 
humble  truth  which  I commend  to  the 
reflection  of  those  who  do  not  quite  under- 
stand that  in  Art  that  which  endures  and 
vivifies  is  the  temperament  of  the  artist. 


XXIII 


THE  ART  OF  BRABAZON 

The  poetry  of  the  art  of  Mr.  Brabazon — 
which  is  the  poetry  of  colour  and  the  poetry 
of  atmosphere — has  never  been  more 
effectively  shown  than  in  the  long  series  of 
Water-Colours  and  of  Pastels  which 
formed  a main  attraction  at  the  Goupil 
Gallery  so  lately  as  the  Autumn  of 
1905.  Brabazon,  it  is  well  to  recollect, 
reached  fullest  maturity  — to  put  it 
mildly — before  ever  his  work  was  exhibited 
at  all ; and  now  that  at  length  the  artistic 
value  of  his  labour  is  recognised  by 
all  who  are  not  only  under  the  spell  of 
ancient  schools  and  time-worn  methods, 
Brabazon  is  a veteran.  In  something  that 
must  be  called  old  age,  he  has  his  reward. 
He  is  recognised  as  one  of  the  last,  and  one 
of  the  noblest,  of  great  sketchers,  and,  like 
the  man  of  modern  spirit  that  he  is, 

217 


218  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


it  is  to  Water-Colour  and  to  Pastel  that  he 
addresses  himself — these  are  the  mediums 
that  he  employs  to  register  his  impressions. 
Inspired  now  by  Velasquez,  now  by 
Turner,  and  now  much  more  by  Nature 
herself  than  by  any  master  who  of  old  time 
interpreted  her,  he  uses  Water-Colour,  as 
he  uses  Pastel,  in  the  great  French  way — 
I am  speaking  now  of  the  fadure.  He 
strains  neither.  He  makes  each  move 
easily  within  the  limits  properly  assigned 
to  it.  So  slight  is  he  sometimes  in  either 
medium,  so  reticent — so  busy  behind  the 
scenes,  so  to  put  it,  in  eliminating  the  super- 
fluous— that  old-fashioned  people  to  this 
day  pronounce  his  work  as  quite  unfinished, 
and  regard  him  as  a sketcher  only  ; some- 
times even  as  that  mortal  of  unenviable 
place  and  dubious  art,  the  “ gifted 
amateur.” 

Of  course,  qualified  persons,  making  their 
slow  progress  through  the  Goupil  Gallery, 
understood  and  were  delighted  by  Bra- 
bazon’s  economy  of  means,  as  much  as  by 
the  exquisiteness  of  his  vision.  How  bold 
he  is,  and  how  refined — how  flexible  ; how 
various.  To  every  theme  he  comes  with 


THE  ART  OF  BRABAZON  219 


admirable  freshness — a happier  Tithonus, 
to  whom  the  gods  have  granted  not  only 
lasting  life,  but  lasting  youth.  Nothing  is 
more  completely  characteristic  than  his 
Water-Colour  of  “ The  Righi,  Evening.” 
The  tender  glow,  attained  easily,  of  sunset 
hues,  is  of  a refinement  Turner  in  his  great 
late  days  could  hardly  have  surpassed.  A 
sunset  effect  about  San  Giorgio,  Venice,  is 
of  absolute  flame.  And  yet  this  is  a vio- 
lence of  necessary  truth,  that  no  sane  eye 
resents.  Then  there  were  some  delightful 
little  exercises  inspired  now  by  Rembrandt, 
now  by  Muller  or  Bonington,  now  by  the 
greatest  Spaniard — reminiscences  only ; not 
claiming  to  be  copies,  but  brilliant,  spirited 
memoranda,  done  for  the  man’s  own 
pleasure  : charged  with  his  personality  : 
done  under  the  influence  of  an  impression 
as  strong  as  if  it  had  been  suggested  in  the 
presence  of  Nature,  and  not  in  presence  of 
another  artist’s  art.  Among  the  Pastels — 
dreams  of  the  South,  so  full  of  individuality 
— were  the  “ Sails,  Toulon,”  and  the 
“ Hyeres  ” — this  last  an  instance  of  deliber- 
ate, visible  construction,  rare  enough 
in  Brabazon’s  work — a work  in  which 


220  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


this  singularly  keen  observer  of  all 
beautiful  things  seems  concerned  mainly, 
of  course,  not  in  building  up  pictures,  but 
in  arresting,  and  making  to  endure,  the 
transient  vision,  the  happy  moment  of  his 
choice. 


XXIV 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  WATTS 

Greuze's  “ Listener  ” and  his  “ Shep- 
herdess ” are  both  not  only  interesting,  but 
even  brilliant  examples  of  at  least  one  side 
of  his  talent ; yet  the  “ Shepherdess  ” 
must  be  considered  frankly  allegorical, 
or  decorative — it  has  little  reference 

to  life — and  the  “ Listener  ” has  about  it 
this,  of  objectionable,  that  it  either 
bestows  on  woman  the  needless  naivete 
of  the  infant,  or  else  tricks  out  the 
child  in  the  too  quickly-acquired  seductive- 
ness of  sex.  In  every  Art  the  personality 
of  the  artist  dominates  the  subject  of  his 
choice,  fixes  its  treatment,  and,  in 
Shakespearean  phrase,  “ shines  through  ” 
the  created  thing.  How  abrupt,  therefore 
— and  instructive — in  a recent  Exhi- 
bition, was  the  transition  from  the 
work  on  which  a not  exalted  mind 
of  the  French  Eighteenth  Century  expressed 
the  ideals,  such  as  they  are,  of  average 

221 


222  WHISTLER  AND  OTHERS 


sensual  men,  to  the  work  of  an  artist  like  our 
veteran  Watts — the  veteran  of  whom  we 
were  proudest — who,  in  all  his  visions  of 
womanhood,  imparted  the  refinement  and 
the  dignity  which  were  his  models’,  but 
which  were  also  his  own.  Miss  Duff  Gordon 
exhibited  a portrait — a Watts  compara- 
tively early — of  that  Lady  Waterford — 
“ Louisa,  Marchioness  ’ ’ — whose  character 
and  charity  were  yet  more  remark- 
able than  her  imaginative  achievements 
in  the  Art  which  Watts  practised.  And 
Watts  himself  was  the  owner  of  a 
full-face  portrait  of  “ Lady  Lilford,”  in 
which  more  perhaps  than  even  in  the  “ Lady 
Katherine  Thynne,”  he  expressed,  as  no 
one  else  could  have  expressed  (for  no 
one  else  amongst  painters  could  so  pro- 
foundly feel)  the  intimate  alliance,  in 
our  best  English  types — which  make  no 
claim  to  be  “ modern,”  since  they  are 
of  Race  much  more  than  of  period — 
between  the  highest  of  refined  natures  and 
the  most  rightly  potent  of  physical  charms. 

The  End. 


Press  of  Isaac  Pitman  & Sons,  Bath,  England. 


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